We’ve all been there, and others will be. It’s truly frustrating to sit down to do the thing you love most, but nothings coming out or the flow is just not there. I used to try and steam roller ahead when that happened, and the result was that I painted crap.

My solution is to have many paintings going on at once, and I mean a lot of them. I usually have about 20 paintings going at once, but 6-10 should also work. All of these paintings need to be different from each other in their planned look and even different sizes. The more different they are from each other the better.

It’s really simple. When you’re stuck with one, take it down and put a different painting on the easel. Having all these paintings going at once gives you many options to choose from. I can almost guarantee that you will gravitate to a certain one and be able to start painting on it right away without going through any frustrations. You will know when your ready to go back to the other one, it just happens and it’s a cool feeling.

Having this type of painting regiment will maximize your painting time and make it more enjoyable, and artist block will just never appear. You will also enjoy the constant feeling of creative energy flow as all your paintings steadily come to fruition with the greatest of ease.

Allow the creative energy to flow from you like water with this regiment and you can say goodbye to blocks forever. This also helps you build up a large catalog of a variety of paintings in a relatively short time. Also, if you notice that you are starting to slow down a bit on a painting, then its time for a break from that one and move onto another one. The goal is to keep the flow streaming.

Another important and useful tool is to look at other peoples art. Not to get ideas, but it’s a way to loosen up your block or resistance. This works because looking at other people’s art will get your imagination going again, and once that happens you will be able to turn your focus back to your painting.

Oddly enough, another way to get through a block is to start another painting in a completely different subject. Sometimes you can get so much tunnel vision on a particular painting that its what actually creates the block. By starting something completely different, it takes the focus off the problem painting.

If that is not working for you, then its time to play and experiment with pigments and brushes with the goal of making nothing you would sell. What I mean is that its time to put up a canvas, and just play. Yes, just play. Do not over think anything. It starts buy looking at your brushes and picking your favorite one on impulse. Then look at your colors, what colors do you like? Take the first one and just start making whatever brush stroke comes natural. Play and enjoy that for a bit, when you find yourself getting a little bored, then pick up another color and repeat the process.

Play with blending colors and different dabs and brush strokes. Think of this process as a form of visual meditation. It does work and you will have fun, and your blocks will go away.

Michael Orlando is a veteran motion picture visual effects artist, and most recently has been concentrating on his oil painting career and building his art business. His original fine art oil painting can be seen at http://www.etsy.com/shop/orlandoart