Dealing with Artist's Block: My Go-To Strategies for Getting Unstuck

There are stretches where I sit down to work and nothing happens. Not even a bad start. Just a kind of quiet that doesn’t give me anything to work with. Sometimes it feels neutral, like a pause. Other times it’s frustrating because I expected to get something going and it just… doesn’t.

After doing this for a while, I don’t see that as unusual anymore. It shows up in different ways depending on what else is going on. Sometimes it’s tied to exhaustion, sometimes it’s tied to pressure, and sometimes I can’t really point to a reason. The important part is not assuming it means something is wrong with the work or with me.

What usually helps first is lowering what I expect from the time I’m in the studio. If I’m stuck, trying to make something finished or meaningful right away doesn’t work. I’ll go back to something simple. Moving paint around, making marks, opening a file I don’t plan to keep. The goal isn’t to make anything good. It’s to get back into motion. That tends to matter more than the result.

If that doesn’t shift anything, I’ll change what I’m doing entirely. Work in a different medium, or do something that isn’t directly tied to my usual practice. It doesn’t have to be art in a formal sense. It just needs to involve making or arranging something so I’m not sitting there waiting for an idea to show up.

Sometimes the space itself is part of the problem. If the studio feels heavy or cluttered, I’ll clear a small area or go through a stack of old work. Not as a full reset, just enough to change how it feels to be in the room. That small shift is usually enough to make it easier to start something, even if it’s minimal.

Time helps when it has a boundary. I’ll set a short window and tell myself that’s all I need to do. A few minutes of drawing, sorting, testing. Once I start, I often keep going, but even if I don’t, I’ve still reconnected with the work for a bit. That’s usually enough for that day.

Walking helps in a different way. Not as a strategy to solve anything, just as a way to step out of the loop of trying to fix the block. When I come back, the work feels a little less loaded.

A lot of this is also about paying attention to how I’m talking to myself. If the tone shifts into frustration or pressure, it’s harder to get anything started. Most of the time that’s coming from being tired or stretched thin, not from the work itself. Letting that settle makes it easier to return without carrying all of that into the next attempt.

Looking at older work can be grounding. Not to judge it or pick it apart, just to remember that I’ve worked through this before. There’s always a point where things pick up again, even if it doesn’t feel like it while you’re in it.

I’ll also give myself something small to respond to. A limited set of materials, a simple constraint, something that removes the need to come up with a full idea. It gives me a place to begin without having to decide everything at once.

Talking to someone helps too. Just saying out loud that things feel stuck can take some of the weight off. It reminds me that this is part of the process, not a sign that I’ve lost something permanently.

What I’ve stopped doing is trying to force it to feel the same every time I sit down to work. Some days I’m in it and some days I’m not. When I’m not, pushing harder doesn’t help. It just makes me want to avoid it more. If you’re in that kind of space right now, it doesn’t mean anything is broken. It usually means something needs to change, even if that change is small. Staying connected to the work in some way, even briefly, tends to matter more than trying to push through it all at once.