What to Do When You Have Creative Burnout: An Artist's Guide to Beating the Creative Drought.

If you're a creative of any kind, I can guarantee you've experienced that soul crushing moment when you sit down to create and absolutely nothing happens. It's like being lost in the desert without a GPS. You're just wandering around in a creative wasteland with no oasis in sight.

Creative burnout hits everyone from Instagram artists with 50K followers to weekend sketchers. It's usually a perfect storm of overwork, perfectionism, and social media comparison culture. The good news? It's totally fixable. Here are three ways to kick burnout to the curb.

Make Some Terrible art. Yep, I Said What I Said.

Set aside time for "bad art days." Make something terrible on purpose. Wonky cats, abstract blobs, draw an actual steaming pile of garbage if you have to. When you're not worried about creating a masterpiece, your brain relaxes and starts playing again. Plus, some of your "bad" art might actually turn out pretty interesting. Remember, the world won't fall apart if you make a few ugly drawings.

Feed Your Visual Vocabulary

Take a break from creating and focus on consuming instead. Visit museums, flip through art books, explore different hashtags, or dive into completely different creative fields. Check out fashion photography if you're a painter, study typography if you're an illustrator, watch cooking videos if you're a sculptor. Every new influence expands your creative toolkit. This advice comes with a caution, scrolling through Pinterest while comparing your own work to other artists will NOT inspire you. It will only make that already battered ego feel even more inadequate. Trust me, I know this from experience.

Change Your Creative Environment

Sometimes burnout happens because we've simply gotten stuck in a rut. If you usually work indoors, take your sketchbook to a park. Try a coffee shop, rearrange your studio, work at a different time of day, or simply face a different direction. Even small changes like new lighting or a different playlist can trick your brain into approaching your work with fresh eyes. And if after all that, you're still uninspired, walk away! Get outside in the fresh air and move around. It helps, trust me.

Creative burnout is frustrating but completely normal and temporary. Every artist goes through it. Remember that creativity isn't a finite resource, it's more like a muscle that sometimes needs rest to come back stronger. Be patient with yourself, try these solutions, and trust that your creative spark is just taking a power nap.

Now stop reading and go make something! Even if it's terrible. Especially if it's terrible.

Jenni Mclaughlin Art.