I've been recently working on some crochet patterns. Mostly inspired by my lack of Christmas ornaments, and need for change... Last year I promised myself instead of doing stuff during December last minute, I was going to slowly work on things for next year over the course of this year. That has led me to start experimenting with some of the ideas that I had. And as each idea got generated more ideas started forming, generating more and more, snowballing momentum. Now I have a whole freaking list piled up...
That said, with how art blocks work for me personally. Unfortunately, I don't have what I understand as traditional art blocks— You know the kind where "I don't know what I want to do," and have no ideas, or have no inspiration kind of thing. (Writing can be difficult for me sometimes. I have ADHD and dyslexia, and can have a hard time expressing myself properly.) My problem is my art blocks stem from shutdowns from trauma and/or depression. Currently and thankfully, I'm in the opposite of an art block. I am still running full steam crunching through my list of ideas. As I crunch through that list I end up with more idea generation landing on that list. It's like a constant ever flowing wellspring of ideas. Some people would view this as a boon. I kind of view it as a curse, because I have like tons of notebooks all over my room with art ideas that I'll probably never ever get to. For me that is a curse because I will probably never live long enough, or have the funds, or opportunities to see all of those come to fruition. Bummer.
Just a tip if you want to overcome art blocks, the kind where you feel like you have no ideas, the best way that I found to overcome those, is to keep a mini notebook. Like one of those small one's from the dollar store and a pen on hand always. Write your ideas down as they come to you asap and be fastidious about this. You'll see how quickly these stack up. Best part, it's actually evidence against not having ideas. It'll give you confidence and disprove the lack of creativity or idea generation.
I feel the problem for most people isn't that they don't have any ideas. It's that they actually have tons of them but they aren't completely consciously bringing them forward, and a lot of the time they're passively thinking. This keeps it staying more subconscious. They forget that they have ideas because they have an idea pop into their head, and then move on to say, to the laundry because they're doing a chore or prioritizing other things. We are easily distracted and because we prioritize other things above even our thoughts at times, what ends up inevitably happening is your thoughts evaporate like dreams in the morning.
Writing things down only takes a few seconds of your time, maybe a minute or two. But most of us waste so much time scrolling online, checking texts, or sitting around doing nothing thinking we have no time, or thinking we're being productive when we are not. In reality we waste a lot of time. As have I. So this is kind of like planting seeds. If you plant your seeds and you water them they grow into plants. So if you write your ideas down in a notebook, yes while they sit there, you can come back to them later or they will often generate more ideas. After all, not everything needs to be done, and not everything needs to be done right away!
As someone with ADHD I really hate checklists, but they also help, and...I also lost them a lot and have to rewrite them. Haha...
So for me having notebooks lying around has been best because it keeps everything localized. If I really need a checklist. I try to clipboard it. But ultimately everything is in a notebook. If you really want to, and you probably should, you should date your idea lists. Because it gives you a frame of reference time wise. You can see how long you've gone without writing, and even how much time has lapsed since you started something or how much you've finished. It's a great way to set goals and see real improvement and results. It's something to measure.
Now as for art blocks stemming from mental health, life burnout, etc... I'm still trying to figure that out. From what I can tell for now, is discipline builds momentum and motivation. Motivation comes from discipline. That's a matter of building or breaking habits. And sometimes, well...rest is important to, and no one should pressure themselves to be constantly on it. This chasing the algorithmic dragon has caused a lot of folks to break. It's not worth it. I tried it on IG. I burned out trying to consistently post, and even hurt my hands and wrists drawing. I caused nerved damage, and had to take a long hiatus as a result.
All in all, I guess what we should all be striving for is balance.
