Hello! My name is Liz Staley and I’m a long-time user of Clip Studio Paint (I started using the program back when it was known as Manga Studio 4!). I was a beta-tester on the Manga Studio 5 program and for Clip Studio Paint, and I have written three books and several video courses about the program. Many of you probably know my name from those books, in fact. I write weekly posts on Graphixly.com and on CSP Tips, so be sure to come back every week to learn more Clip Studio Tips and Tricks from me!

Have you ever wanted to draw or create something but you just had no inspiration? All creatives, no matter the method they use to create, go through this at least once in their life! Here are 10 ways to find inspiration when you have none!

Let’s get inspired!

Get Out In Nature or Change Your Environment

This is a pretty straightforward one, and one that is suggested a lot, but it really does work! If you usually create at your desk but can grab your supplies (paints, iPad, etc) and go somewhere else, do so! Whether it’s relocating to your couch, backyard, a coffee shop, a bench at the park, or out in the middle of a field, sometimes just getting up and moving out of your normal environment can spark your brain out of a funk and get the creative juices flowing. If you go to a coffee shop or park, try doing gesture drawings of other people that you see. Went to a park? Find some beautiful scenery to sketch! Sometimes just changing up your environment can give you the motivation to work on the things you have unfinished too. 

Do An Art Challenge

There are some art challenges that nearly every artist who spends a lot of time on-line has heard of, like Inktober and MerMay. But if those aren’t appealing to you or you don’t have time during those months, there are tons of other art challenges out there you can just do on your own. For instance, maybe you want to create a bunch of drawings of your original character, do a search for “OC Art Challenge” and you can find tons of lists with different scenarios to put your OC in. Pick a list that you like and start drawing! 

Give Yourself a Time Limit

This is a tip for those of you who work best with a deadline! For this technique, give yourself a time limit and a goal - say 10 minutes to do a revised sketch or 20 minutes to have a finished sketch. Then set a timer and get to work! Sometimes just knowing that you only need to do something for a set amount of time will jolt your brain awake and spark creativity! 

This technique also works really well if you’re dragging your feet on something that needs to be done, such as a commission that you’re not crazy about doing. If I have something that I’m not excited to work on but I know needs to be done, I’ll set a timer and just work on it for that amount of time and give myself a break. This turns a task from a drag into something exciting where you see how much you can accomplish in a short amount of time!

Play Around With Your Art

Art is supposed to be fun, so play around with it! It’s very easy to fall into the trap of needing every piece to be “perfect” and that can often stifle your creativity. So for this method, just have fun! Doodle on a piece of notebook paper, splash colors onto a canvas, draw in pen, make random dots and shapes on a canvas and see what shapes you can pick out of them. 

I’ve honestly found having a “Secret Sketchbook” that only I look in to be a big help. Since I know I’m the only one who will see the contents, I have given myself permission to be as messy and weird in that sketchbook as I want! I have ugly sketches, nonsensical doodles, notes, dreams, and some sketches that have turned into full pieces in there. It’s a place where I can play and do whatever I want and no one will judge me for it! 

Set Up Limitations

If you’re feeling ho-hum about the stuff you normally create, change it up or set some limitations for yourself. Examples of this could be using a new medium (usually paint with acrylics? Try drawing with crayons!), creating with your non-dominant hand, or limiting your color palette to one or two colors and see what you come up with. This can be a fun way of challenging yourself to do something very different, and you’ll probably learn something and get excited about creating again along the way. 

Scroll Through Pinterest

Pinterest is one of my favorite websites because it’s a visual search engine! Not only is it a great place to find poses and art ideas, but by creating a free account you can then save those inspirational images to your own “board” and look back on them whenever you’re out of ideas. Personally, I have a Pinterest board for art tutorials and one for art reference as well, and I check out both of them multiple times a week to look for ideas of something I might want to draw. I love that you can save pins and look back on them easily later.

Just make sure you don’t spend so much time scrolling through Pinterest that you never get back to creating! 

Study Other Artists

We all have artists whose work inspires us, but did you ever sit and wonder how an artist achieved a certain look or what makes their style so appealing to you? When you’re feeling low on inspiration, look to the art of the people who inspire you! Is there an artist whose coloring you just love? Make some studies of a few of their pieces and see if you can figure out how they do it! Love the way another artist draws faces? Create some studies of faces you like from their art to decode their technique so you can use your discoveries in your own work. 

This technique is probably a little controversial, so let me be clear - I am not saying to copy other artists and post those copies as your own! Studies such as these should be for your own use, especially if you are, say, copying an entire digital painting piece to figure out how the artist does their brushwork. Artists have been studying the Masters for centuries and this is a tried and true technique for both improving your craft and getting inspired, but you should use those discoveries to influence your own original work.

Jumble Up Your Process

This is another way to “shake things up” and engage your brain in a new and interesting way. We all have our processes, and I often talk about ways to speed up your art process in these articles! But what about completely shaking up your process and doing it out of order? Let’s say you sketch, then ink, then color your piece. What if you started by painting some colors randomly and then drawing on top of that? Doing your normal process in a different order is a great challenge that can spark your creativity (and maybe give you a different way of doing things too!)

Draw Some Music

For this method, find some music that you like and close your eyes while listening to it. Imagine some scenes or images that the music brings up. Maybe this is a scene between some characters or a beautiful landscape. Then draw what you saw as the music was playing! You can even be abstract with this one and do it along with the “Play” tip from above. Maybe the song just brought up some colors for you and you paint those, then use it as a background for another drawing! Music is powerful and can make us feel and imagine new scenarios that we maybe haven’t before.

Browse Art Books

I absolutely love art books and have a small collection of them. They can be a great source of inspiration! Not only do I have art books from movies that I like but I also have a book of photos of carousel horses that has inspired quite a few drawings as well. Try out a color palette from a piece of concept art, or just see what catches your eye and try to incorporate that pose, setting, or item into your own drawing. 

If you don’t have a collection of art books, you can find groups on Facebook that share character designs and sketches from art books, and from every topic from anime to movies!

Conclusion

Lack of inspiration happens to all of us sometimes, but if you just remember to look at inspiring things and to switch things up, not only will you be inspired to create but you’ll probably come across some techniques that you can use in your other creative endeavors as well! You may just find some new ways of working that take your work to the next level. 

For more information on CLIP Studio Paint, please visit https://www.clipstudio.net/en  or https://graphixly.com