Susie Monday . El Cielo Studio

Detail art cloth, Shaman/Cruxificion 

3. Do something different.

Sounds like a no-brainer. But once in the studio it can be remarkably difficult to figure out exactly HOW to do something surprising, off-the-wall, out of the box. Our habits and patterns of work and technique are familar friends and stepping outside our comfortable tools and processes can make us feel uneasy.. or trivial... or unskilled ... or.... So these jumpstarts are designed for those times when what you are doing feels stale, repetitive or, dare we say, boring?

Try one of these to trick yourself into trying something new and different (Remember, no one said you have to  keep doing it, spend a fortune on new materials, show it to anyone, save it or even like it. This is about pushing your personal envelopes in  order to have something different show up in the mail box.)

1. Take $5 to the dollar store and buy somethingdifferent to make art with -- could be kid's crayons, a book to alter,  a dishtowel to include in a piece of art, a foam brush to shape or distress, a plastic basket to use as a stencil. Take new eyes with you.

2. Consciously take one of your visual ideas through one or more of these "unifying" concepts: scale (do the same thing larger or smaller), weight (add or subtract), progression and/or direction (could you do it upside down?), repetition and intensity.

3. Take a not so successful piece of work and add it to another piece, or cut it up and use it the pieces, or find just the part you like and edit to that, then expand into something new.

4. Consciously copy the style of an artist's whose work you either like or don't like - but change the medium.

5.  Look at your current work and write 100 questions about it. No answers, just the questions. See where this takes you.

6. Make a photo collection with your digital camera  in your neighborhood , or, even better, in a new (to you) environment -- drive to a different part of town, go to an industial park, seek out a water way or country lane. Take digital photos from the perspective of one of the sensory alphabet: light, color, sound, movement, rhythm, space, texture, line, shape, Edit to make a slideshow and use the photos to inspire something new. 

Sometimes it just takes a little down time! Lauri Panova Smith took this great picture of our dog Rodeo during one of her photo walks: