How to Deal with Artist's Block

Have you ever heard of Writer's Block?

If you have, then you probably have a good idea about what this post is about. If not, let me take a moment to explain.

Writer's Block is when an author is simply stuck in a rut about moving on with their book.

So looking at the title which says Artist's Block, you can probably guess what it is. Artist's Block is when you are an artist and are just completely stuck in a rut about what to draw.

From experience, I can tell you that Artist's Block is a pain. I can't even begin to count the number of times I've sat for hours on end, staring at paper with my pencil in hand.

But when you get Artist's Block, I've actually found several ways to push past it.

1) Take out all your old pictures...

...and laugh about how horrible you used to be, before proving you've gotten better.

Alright, that kind of sums it up, but really, that's one of the things that's knocked me out of Artist's Block before.

Go through all your old pictures you've saved, find one you were so proud of when you drew it, laugh about how horrible it really is, get paper, and draw it again, but much better.

2) Just let your brain wander

This one is the one I turn to most often. I simply sit with a piece of paper in front of me and a pencil in hand, and I just let my hand draw whatever it wanted. Last time I did this, I ended up with various pictures of characters from a show I like to watch!

And finally,

3) Take a break

Sometimes, Artist's Block comes from trying to hard. So, just stop trying. Simply take a break, a day or two or three to clear your head. Then go back to your paper, and I think you'll find yourself having a bit of better luck than you had been having before.


Do you have any other tricks for dealing with Artist's Block? Could you share them with me?

A Week at Camp

I promised to write this post, I'm sorry it took so long though, I've been a bit busy.

While I was at Family Camp with my friend, from July 23d - July 28th, I had so much fun!

We went up on Sunday afternoon, and it's a three hour drive from where we started, so by the time we got there, there was barely time to unpack before it was time to eat.

After dinner, me and my friend started work on the puzzles I had brought.

On Monday, we mostly worked on puzzles, though we did do a bit of exploration as well.

Tuesday we climbed up a mountain, that though it isn't changing, feels like it grows larger every time you climb it. Supposedly there's wifi at the top, but I never got a connection. Ah well.

When we got back from that, me, my friend, and a kid we met there, took a ten minute break for lunch, got changed, and ran out to the lake.

Needless to say, the next day my muscles were sore!

On Wednesday we drove out to a ghost town, combined with a non-ghost town. I got a lot of cool pictures, but I haven't uploaded them to my computer yet, so unfortunately I can't show them off.
When we got back, we once again went swimming!

On Thursday, we went Fossil Digging in one of the semi-nearby towns. Me and my friend mostly found mineral stains, but we did get a few leaves.

When we got back, once again we went swimming, and during this swim, we saw some sort of military plane, when the pilot saw us, they looped back and did a barrel roll! Well, supposedly. I'm nearsighted, and water + glasses doesn't usually turn out well, so I wasn't able to see it.

And Thursday night we roasted marshmallows and made S'mores!

Sadly, on Friday we had to pack up, clean camp, and leave.

But it was a great week.

Have you gone camping before? What did you do?