3 exercises to strengthen our imagination
my favourite ways to practice creativity and generate ideas
Hello, and welcome to The Outdoor Sketchbook Collective substack. This is a blog run by me, Orla. I’m an artist & illustrator inspired by nature and the outdoors. I love using art as a way to connect to our natural spaces, through writing (here) teaching (patreon) and sharing process (youtube).
If you’ve ever sat down to paint something, the chances are you’ve got your materials out, looked at the blank page and asked yourself - what on earth am I going to make? Or, maybe you’ve been painting for a while, and things are starting to feel repetitive.
It’s a common position to be in, when you’ve finally found the time to create just for yourself, but now you have that moment, the question of “but what do I do now?” looms loudly.
Part of the joy - and challenge - of creating something, is the unknown result - we don’t always know how our work will turn out, especially if our work is guided by the process. The good news? You probably don’t need to.
What’s more important, is to feel confident in your ability to come up with imaginative ideas that you can generate to inspire yourself, to move from the blank page, and get started. That’s exactly why I’m sharing these three exercises that I personally use with you today, to help come up with ideas and strengthen our imagination. You can do them in a few minutes, before you start painting, to help get your creative mind warmed up, which will help you ease in to making the work. Because, just like anything, imagination is a muscle that we can - and need to - practice, to strengthen our creativity.
Exercise One: Words
Our first exercise is to get some headspace, and clear our minds of daily life clutter, so we can focus on creating. After all, how can we let our imagination run wild if we’re thinking about the next food shop? Let’s get what we are feeling or thinking out of our head through words. And if writing isn’t your thing, then this exercise would also work by talking into a voice memo app.
The first thing I often do is a brain dump. It’s simply where you pour out everything and anything that’s clamouring around in your head out on the page. I like to do this in block capitals because it feels really satisfying. First, I do a page of all the ‘life stuff’ I’ve got going in my head; jobs that need to be done, a meeting coming up, maybe cooking ideas or something I need to pick up from the shop. You get the idea. I do this so I can get all my obligations out of my head, and focus on painting here and now.
Next, I do a second brain dump: This one is more focused on art related things - All of this things that have been inspiring me. You probably get inspiration through the week: maybe it’s materials to try, colours to combine, a subject mater to try out, or another artists work you found and fell in love with. What usually happens is we find all this inspiration and have many ideas in the week, and when it finally comes to painting time, these ideas and that feeling of excitement vanishes the moment we see the blank page. I find this brain dump helps me get excited again, and reminds me of what I’ve been drawn to recently.
It’s important to note that this brain dump isn’t about making decisions on what we will paint; it’s just a step to get that excitement buzzing again - think of it like inspiration immersion.
You might want to take it a step further and take a look at any inspiration you’ve noted down again - this might be images you’ve saved on instagram or pinterest, it might be looking out a book that’s been inspiring you, looking at old work you made, or finding some photos or videos from your photo library to take you back to that moment of inspiration, related to the words you’ve written out.
Exercise Two: Visualisation & Free Writing
Our second exercise is a visualisation exercise. This is one of my favourite methods to generate ideas for my art making when I want to create work inspired by my own experience. This exercise will help to make decisions on atmosphere, colours and overall aims of the painting we will make.
First, we need to pick a theme or subject matter. My work focuses on nature and landscape, so I’ll be demonstrating this exercise through that topic - but the process will work for any subject matter. Whatever you pick, I suggest it’s something you are familiar with, and have experienced yourself, because you will have more memories and understanding to draw upon.
Right now, I’m creating paintings inspired by the sea.
Our first step is to sit down, close our eyes or just sit quietly for a minute. We’re going to sit and visualise our subject matter. You might find it helpful to note down your ideas as they come up. When I think of sea, I immediately am drawn to a specific memory; of the sea crashing at Rackwick bay in Hoy, Orkney. I’m going to sit and imagine myself there. Instead of trying to remember every literal detail of how the place looked, I’m going to try and remember how I felt, what I could hear, what I could smell. If I could touch anything, what would it feel like? Thinking about the visuals, I’ll try and remember rough elements: what colours were there, were there rocks or sand, was there any buildings or paths, what was the weather doing? Were there cliffs, cars, people, animals?
An additional step is to try free writing after we’ve spent a moment visualising. It’s simply filling a page with unfiltered thoughts related to this visualisation, pouring everything out on the page. It doesn’t need to make much sense, just a screed of sentences that describe what you visualise.
Often times, this visualisation exercise reveals to us what we are interested in. I find that I remember details from what’s important to me, and forget the rest. I use this visualisation to know what to capture and focus on in my art making, and I leave the rest.
For example, I find it hard to remember details: my memories are often fuzzy when it comes to animals or cars in a scene. Mostly, I remember light, colours, patterns, textures, sometimes a persons character, and sensory experiences, and these elements are what I dedicate to documenting in my work. Everyone will be different, and that’s what makes our art exciting, and help capture a moment or a place through a more personal lens.
A common blocker on starting a painting is feeling overwhelmed: how can I possibly capture everything in a scene? The answer is, you don’t. Just focus on a few key things that are important to you.
Exercise Three: Stories
Another way to strengthen your imagination is to build stories and scenes in your head. This one is a little like guided daydreaming. It’s also the exact method I’ve been following to create the art you’re seeing made on screen throughout this video. Instead of starting with visual inspiration, we are starting with words, to build stories and moments, which we can then paint.
Our first step is to pick our subject matter.
Next, write out an emotive word as well as a phrase you relate to your subject.
To demonstrate, I am using words associated with the coast, and my emotive word is ‘Awe’ and my phrase is ‘Sounds of the Coast ’. Don’t overthink the words, we aren’t looking for poetic masterpieces, just something to springboard from. Whatever comes to mind first.
Our next step is to create a mind map for the emotive word, putting the word at the centre of the page.
We’re going to sit and imagine this word in relation to our subject matter. I’m thinking about the word ‘Awe’, in relation to the sea. Here are some ideas to mind map:
If the emotion could be a colour(s) what would it be?
What makes you feel that way about the subject matter?
Is it the creatures, the movement, the drama, a fond memory, a person you met, the colours you saw? What do I associate with the feeling of awe? Maybe a camping trip, looking at the stars over the horizon of the sea, or the sound of birds migrating.
Sometimes, I find the phrase option helps me build a story in my mind easier than the emotive word, and get into the details and specifics. Rather than making a mind map, we’re going to list out ideas for this one. It can be fun to push yourself past the first idea, and play with imagining scenes or moments. Try and list 10+ ideas for your phrase, to really challenge yourself to come up with ideas. For instance, when I think on the phrase ‘Sounds of the Coast’ the initial visual it conjures up is the sound of the sea over a pebbled beach. However, if I keep pushing myself, I can think of all kinds of scenes:
footpaths with birds dive bombing and shrieking overhead
the sound of an ice cream truck in the distance
crashing stormy seas against a pier
footsteps in wet sand
the rustle of a picnic being unpacked
the wind billowing against my tent
gentle breeze through sand dunes
the gate that squeaks as you open it to lead to the beach
dogs racing and splashing in the sea
swimmers shrieking from the cold water
So, those are my three favourite processes to generate ideas and help push my imagination past the first thing that comes to mind, to create specific and personal work. I hope these exercises have given you some new ideas or approaches to generating ideas, next time you feel stuck in a rut!
I feel incredibly fortunate that I get to take so much time to reflect on creative processes and share them with you, and part of the reason that is possible is because of the support I have from my Patreon members over on my page, the Outdoor Sketchbook Collective. I wanted to take a minute to say a big thank you if you’re a subscriber here on substack or youtube or a member over on patreon. I love being able to share what I know, and learn from you all in the process, and your support and encouragement goes such a long way to help make the videos and writing possible. If you’re interested in learning more through exclusive monthly video and written guides to help you play, work loosely, and enjoy the creative painting process, consider checking out my Patreon, which I’ve linked below.
As always, thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you outside.
P.s: I’m sharing this blog post as a written version of this video, so you can refer back to any of the ideas with ease. If you’d like to watch the original, you can check it out here: