Daydreaming causes creative and growth

In a previous post, I wrote about how unfinished projects can stunt creative growth. This time I wanted to talk about a habit that can cause creative growth. Daydreaming is a habit that can promote creativity and help you explore new ideas.

There is a correlation between daydreaming and creativity. Daydreaming allows the mind to wonder through many thoughts and come up with new ideas with low effort. When you are trying to come up with a new idea, it can be difficult to for yourself on the spot and force yourself to create something new. However, if you just relax and let your mind daydream, your mind will do that work for you and you will stumble upon new ideas.

Daydreaming can also help you reflect and focus on your past project or ideas you have forgotten about. Daydreaming, in a similar way to night dreaming, lets your mind wonder through your past experiences, allowing you to combine old ideas to create something new.

Daydreaming is important. It is something many people do. However, many people let their daydreams remain in their thoughts. In 2017 I started a project called Daydream Studios. The goal of this project is to encourage people to turn their daydreams into a reality. Too often, people spend their days doing work they don’t have passion in while they daydream about projects they’d like to be doing. However, people can assume that they don’t have the means to accomplish these projects. I encourage you to not let yourself be one of these people. If you find yourself daydreaming about a more exciting life or about a job you’d rather be in, start working towards that daydream. It doesn’t have to be your whole life. It can be a hobby. Take steps to introduce that dream into your life in whatever small way you are able to.

If you want to read more about the scientific benefits of daydreaming, check out this article. When can you find time in your routine to daydream? What daydreams could you start taking steps towards turning them into realities?

How to understand the creative process

Understanding the creative process can help you navigate through your creativity more effectively. It is one thing to come up with an idea, but it is another to know what questions to ask yourself to fully develop the idea. Here are the basic steps of the creative process.

Describe

What kind of project are you working on? How will this be experienced?

Analyze

How have others accomplished this task? What tools do you need to work on this project?

Interpret

How will this project be interpreted by the audience? How will it be interacted with?

Create

How are you going to make this? How will you know it is complete?

Presentation

What makes this project effective? How can we use this to inspire others?

Evaluate

What could’ve been done better? What criticism did others have?

Reflect

How will you use what you learned in the future? Where did this project take you on your creative journey?

Asking yourself these questions along the way can help keep your creativity stimulated and working effectively. If you want to know more about coming up with idea, turning ideas into reality or good creative habits, check out my previous posts. How do you plan on using these questions? What would you like me to write about next?

 

Good habits improve creativity

Practice makes perfect. This includes creativity. Creativity is like a muscle and it requires exercise or it will become sterile and ineffective. Here are a few creativity exercises to help keep your mind in a creativity ready.

Create something every day

Create something every day. It doesn’t have to be a grand project. It can just be a simple sketch. Creating something every day can help keep you on your toes and help you innovate in the future projects.

Ask for input from various people

Show others your work and ask for their input. Don’t just ask from one person, but from a variety of others to help shape your work to make it more relatable to a wider audience.

Surround yourself with creative people

Keep yourself around other creative thinkers. This will keep your mind thinking creatively and help spur new ideas that you might not be able to come up with on your own.

To read more about coming up with ideas and turning them into realities, check out my previous posts. To find more creative habits, check out Inc.

How do you plan to exercise your creativity? What would you like to see me post about next?

 

 

 

How to turn an idea into a reality

Once you’ve mastered the art of inspiration, it can be difficult to turn your ideas into actual projects. It is much easier to hold on to an idea than it is to put the work into creating the thing you’ve envisioned. However, the whole point of coming up with an idea is to create something new. Here are a couple of tips to help turn your ideas into realities.

Check your resources

Consider the reality of your idea. Is it something you can reasonably accomplish with the resources you can acquire? If so, start working to gather the necessary resources. Once you have them, you will have less excuses to not start on your project. If you cannot reasonably obtain the resources, it may be time to abandon the idea and start this process for a different idea.

Set milestones

A creative project can be daunting. Setting milestone can help breakdown a large idea into smaller tasks that seem easier to do. The more milestones you accomplish, the more progress you make on your project as a whole.

Collaborate

There is no shame in working on a project with a partner. Especially if it a large project. It is easy to want to tackle a large idea on your own if you’re the one who came up with the idea, but having help is always beneficial. Collaborating can ease the workload and bring new perspectives to a project.

Have patience

You won’t accomplish your project in an instant. It takes time and effort to bring an idea from concept to reality. If you accept this, you will stick with your project for a longer period of time. Take breaks from the project and don’t wear yourself out.

There is no better feeling than actually accomplishing a project you set out to do.  Creators leave their ideas undone far too often. Let yourself stand out from the crowd and start turning your ideas into reality. If you’re struggling to come up with ideas at all, check out my post about finding inspiration. If you want more tips to turn your ideas into reality, check out Creative Project Canvas and Forbes.

Which ideas are you going to start furthering towards reality? How do you plan to do this? What aspect of the creative process would you like me to post about next?

Unfinished projects stunt creative growth

It is easy to get inspired and start a new project. It is not easy to follow through and finish a project. Having a lost list of unfinished projects has no benefits and can lead to bad habits when it comes to your creative growth. Here are a couple reasons why you shouldn’t let your projects go unfinished.

Bad habits

When you leave a couple of projects unfinished, you kick-start a bad habit. A couple turns into a few; a few turns into a lot. Before you know it, you haven’t finished a project in years.

Limited portfolio

Portfolios are important to any creative individual. Even if you are not pursuing a career in a creative field, having a portfolio helps when you want to pick up small creative projects. If you continuously leave your personal projects unfinished, your portfolio will start to suffer.

Nothing is perfect

No project will ever be perfect. We can all look at our art and see ways it can be improved, but if we constantly improve, we will never be finished. Everything could be better, but that doesn’t mean it should be. Rather than delay the completion of a project to tweak a couple more things, accept those flaws and finish the project.

Loss of passion

There are plenty of reasons that people don’t finish their projects. Often, the reason is a loss of passion in a project. This can be dangerous. If you constantly lose passion in your projects, you can quickly lose passion in your art form.

Pushing through the reasons to leave a project unfinished and completing a project will help you stay creatively healthy. Finishing your projects will allow you to grow more confident in your craft and hone your creative skills. Whether you’re working on your own or with a tram, Trello is a good tool to keep your tasks organized and help you finish your projects. If you want to learn more about this, I suggest you check out Andrew Huang and Lisa Esile.

What projects have you let go unfinished? How do you plan on picking them back up and finishing them?

How to get inspired to create new things

Inspiration is one of the key parts of creativity. Before you can set out to create something new, you must have an idea of what to make. Coming up with a new idea can be very challenging. Here are some tips and ways to stay inspired and come up with new ideas.

Experiences

Some of the most engaging art captures a memory. Memories hold a lot of power. Look into your past to find inspiration.

Nature

Nature is the ultimate creation. There’s nothing more inspiring than God’s creativity. Go for a walk and see what can inspire you in nature.

Carry a notebook

Carry a notebook with you. You never know when a new idea is going to hit you. You don’t want to lose that idea when you have time to sit down and create it. Write down your ideas immediately in your notebook. These notebooks are worth the $10 or $15 they may cost to keep your ideas flowing.

Limits

Give yourself limits. Create a boundary keeping your ideas inside a specific theme. This could lead to new ideas that differ from things you’ve created before.

Other things

There is no shame in being inspired from your favorite media. Write a story based on your favorite book. Make a design based on an animation style from your childhood. The art around us can be the most useful source of inspiration.

These are just a couple of ideas to help you stay inspired and create new things. If you’re interested in more ideas, check out Josie Gledhill and Forbes. How do you plan to use these tips to inspire your creations? Have you used these ideas before?

Layers bring life to digital art

Layers are the key to creating an enticing piece of art. Layers are used in most photo editing and graphic design software such as Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. Layers have many uses; however, not many people use them to their full potential.

What is a layer? If the name didn’t give it away already, they are separate graphics that are stacked on top of each other to create a final image. Many artists transitioning from physical media to digital art have a hard time using layers to their full potential. Whether your digital art is photo editing, graphic design or music production, here are some helpful tips to bring life into your digital art piece.

Organization

Using layers, you can keep all of your assets and edits organized in your project. It is important to give your layers names that are easily identifiable. Many programs allow you to flag your layers with a color, which can help keep things organized.

Opacity

Opacity itself is a hidden art technique that is wildly underused. Try giving your project a layered background with a transparent color above a relevant photo or texture in the background. Changing opacity levels on layers can help to make any project look sleek.

Blending

Blending is similar to opacity, but it has its own realm of possibilities. Most editing programs allow you to change the blending mode of your layer. These can lead to interesting effects. Try stacking a couple of different blending modes with varying opacity to add a nice effect to your whole project.

Music

Layers are traditionally referred to in the context of graphic design and photography, but they are also helpful when mixing audio for music. Layering more than one instrument playing the same melody can bring new life into a project. Another helpful option is to layer the same instrument playing in a different octave. If you want to learn more about this I suggest checking out LANDR.

Layers are a simple tool that, if used to their full potential, can breathe new life into any digital project. How do you plan on using layers in your projects?