Creativity Ideas

My wife and I both went to college together and got degrees related to some sort of creativity (she actually got a Bachelors of Arts degree). We both have jobs that are working very well for us, but we don't have the ability to really go in and create our own thing. I'm looking for ideas for something we can do at home in small bursts (we have a 7 month old child so we have to parent her from time to time) that can rekindle our creative thoughts. We have a wide variety of skills from some coding to photography and photoshop ability.

I'm interested in what others have found that helps them fuel that creative drive. The only thing I think is off the table is creative writing. While I used to enjoy it, she hates it and I would like for this to be something we do together. As for available tools/software, between our two jobs, we have access to basically anything, including full Adobe Creative Suite and we do still own a nice Canon DSLR (and we actually know how to use it manual balancing fstop, shutter speed, and iso).

I don't know how much time you did with arts as far as music/acting/filming but this is what I want to do with my family. I have 3 girls ages 4, 9. 11. Parodying modern songs and movies and rewriting for my family would be hella fun!

Now that is fun with the whole family!

Had to add this one as The Greatest Showman is my 2 oldest daughters favorite movie so this is pure joy.

Hi Kozmo, we've got a few creative threads where people post stuff that might be worth looking at.

The two i'm most invested in are...
Post a Picture : Something you created , which is more a general thread for people to show off the recent things they've made.

or there's a Drawing / Digital Drawing specific thread here as well.

One thing i also find really useful are the many (MANY) monthly challenges available online, such as inktober (the guy behind it is currently running a new weekly challenge called "inktober52" which is worth looking into). But there are a near infinite number of "daily drawing challenges" available for every month of the year that work great as prompts and ideas.

Do you guys post tutorials or links to where you learn things? We've been out of the game for a while and may need to relearn a bunch of stuff.

Well, I don't know that any of us "professional ar-tistes" would stoop to using tutorials, but I hear DeThroned teaches his technique. Then again, it might be too advanced for an amateur...

This particular masterpiece is entitled "The Ham Prophecy".
IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/FmTHjz5.jpg)

I think DeThroned is a bit underappreciated at the moment, don't you?

I know it's for the lols, but for reals if anyone feels that tutorials are below them, you are only hurting yourselves. My nieces are learning things at 9 that I struggled with up until my late teens because they just go out and search youtube for whatever esoteric how-to they're thinking of. Someone out there has made one.

I cannot emphasize enough how useful youtube tutorials are. I've used them in a pinch when trying to do multiple point perspectives, or when I've forgotten how to use a function in photoshop.

*enthusiastic nodding*

There is no eldritch art to....art. It's entirely learning, practice and observation.

Big fan of https://www.ctrlpaint.com/ if you're looking for a specific recommendation for digital painting.

Also as someone who mostly does pen and ink for traditional stuff. HIGHLY recommend Alphonso Dunn on youtube.

Absolutely post tutorials. There is no shame in watching them.
I especially like to scour youtube for tips, insights, or outright step by step.

I just recently caved and bought this tutorial which I found fascinating.
I am hook line and sinker for anything involving 3d sketching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFXw...

Oh and if you don't have an easily accessible life drawing class, i'd also recommend

technically the videos aren't on youtube because they started getting flagged and demonitised, but you can click through to the proper reference vids from each entry.

As for creativity inspirations, I feel it's okay to start small. Like literally smaller formats. If it's drawing, that can be as simple as a 5"x4" square of paper and ArtPrompts. If writing, could be something like 1-paragraph microfictions or poems.

My dad used to get us to make haikus and senryus with him about our everyday lives as kids. The cat, making dinner, watching my dad shave. It made the creative process silly, collaborative, and fun. It got us thinking about words, stories, ideas, and mental imagery in very small, bite-sized ways while we were doing other things. It was kind of a creative warm-up, to get the brain thinking creatively about words in small, approachable ways.

There is also the weekly drawing prompt thread. It kind of fizzled out early last year, but with inktober 52 running (which is literally a drawing prompt per week) then i thought it worth resurrecting.

A friend of mine introduced me to a super simple exercise that works great for kids interested in drawing: draw 6 boxes on a page, and under them write any combo of adj + noun you think of. Then the kid has to draw that in the corresponding box. It's good to start with straightforward stuff like "cranky cat", but gets more fun/thought provoking when they're up for the challenge for something like "cowardly fire alarm".

That is essentially my technique when I get into a rut. I come up with three things of the top of my head and then google image search for interesting pictures of each of the things. Once I've collected a bunch of pics for each, I look at them collectively and narrow it down to a few pieces each. The concept of whatever vehicle or creature then starts to unfold really quickly at that point.
I created this from lobster, train and robot for a steampunk contest over 15 (yikes!) years ago:
IMAGE(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f4/6a/f1/f46af113f8a9ee6450260a5ef403c95e.jpg)
edit: I have an itch to redo this piece. The technology and the tools have gotten so much more sophisticated since the early 2000's.

My post was totally for the lols. Mainly because when it comes to artistry, I don’t have much natural talent. I actually use YouTube tutorials for just about everything.

I've found game design a strong outlet for creativity. It's a bottomless well of things to learn, so you're never lacking new stuff to learn. And it can connect easily to writing, art, 3D design, coding, voice acting, and more. Great community of support out there as well. We have threads here for digital game design and tabletop design.

The MakerMovement is all about creativity as well.

So much stuff to make and do!