6 strange methods artists use to find inspiration

A lack of inspiration is one of the biggest brakes on any artist. When art isn't just your calling but also your way of life and your job, you need to use every means available (even some that aren't) to get the brain going: the ultimate goal is to create without sitting around waiting for the muses. As Picasso said, let inspiration find you working. But what if you've spent hours and hours in your studio and the light bulb still won't come on? What if you've been to the museum forty times already and nothing? Then it's time to take a risk: have a look at these strange methods for finding artistic inspiration.

Going hungry

“Most of the time I would go to bed without dinner, I'd see things, shapes on the ceiling, and I'd draw them in a notebook”. Joan Miró knew a thing or two about artistic inspiration. In his younger years, when he was living at 45 rue Blomet in Paris (a studio Pablo Gargallo had left him), the Catalan painter experimented with all sorts of ways to switch on his creativity.

Miró tells how the days were exhausting and that sometimes he even forgot to eat. On one of those long Parisian days when he hadn't put a thing in his mouth, he noticed a curious sensation, as if his mind were overexcited, almost on the brink of hallucination: the lack of food was causing those odd sensations. From that moment on, the Catalan painter used this and other unusual strategies to widen his expressive motifs. And along the way he saved a few francs on the shopping, which never hurts.

Getting naked

Quite a few artists, painters as well as writers and musicians, have practised this formula for inspiration. It consists of standing completely naked in front of your working material, be it a canvas, the typewriter or the musical instrument. This way, some artists feel purified and in more direct contact with their creative soul. Of course, in an unheated studio in the middle of winter it may not be the wisest idea. Even so, some artists take this formula to the extreme and head off to woods, beaches and other settings, merging with nature and waiting for it to whisper them a secret they can take to the canvas.

Getting up in the middle of the night

Set the alarm for 4 in the morning. Get up and walk around the house. Read something or watch television. The point is to wake the brain up. And then go back to bed. If you're lucky, the dreams you have in this second stretch of sleep will be far more realistic, to the point that in some cases you'll feel that you can control your role in the dream, which is pretty rare. And what better creative material than our own dreams?

Dalí's 'micro-naps'

Closely related to the previous method, we have to mention a formula used by another of the geniuses of Spanish surrealism. Dalí knew better than anyone how to make the most of the mysteries woven by dreams (and nightmares), so much so that he created a whole universe of his own. To be in more direct contact with his dreams he followed this routine: he would lean back in a chair holding a spoon over a plate, so that when his muscles relaxed as he entered a deep stage of sleep, the spoon would fall and the noise would wake him. And off he went to paint dreams.

Cards to break the routine

One of the great dangers for an artist is routine: always doing the same thing, always thinking the same way, tackling the same subjects and attacking the canvas from the same assumptions. A curious method imported from the music industry is using cards to break the routine. Each card has an unusual action to apply to the painting written on it, so that the basis of the piece comes out of chance. A method Duchamp would certainly have enjoyed.

Painting yourself

Can't get anywhere with the canvas? Then join it. Fed up with not finding a decent source of inspiration for their brushes, some artists end up turning themselves into the draft of their artwork. Pick some part of your body and paint yourself. Forget the canvas for a few minutes and focus on your own body. It's a formula that combines very well with some of the methods above. Although be careful if you go out into the street naked, painted, unfed and half asleep: the experience may be very artistic for you, but perhaps not for everyone else.

And what unusual methods do you use to find inspiration?