I am sitting here trying to figure out what I want to write about. The longer I sit here, the less I can think of. Interesting how that works, huh? Sometimes it seems like the more we rack our brains for ideas, the less capable we are of coming up with them. I wonder why that is. Is it the stress of trying to come up with an idea, or is it just some weird block our minds do. It’s like with artists block. How can I go from having so many ideas bouncing around in my head I feel like I’ll go crazy if I don’t put them on paper and get them out of my head, to having absolutely no ideas floating around and feeling like my artsy side is an empty and boring void. It is the weirdest sensation and I wonder what it is that causes it. I’m sure I could research some scientific explanations of sorts, but it’s almost more fun to think of it as a philosophical conundrum, something that may or may not an explanation. Food for thought, as it were. Another crazy thing is how artist block hits every artist. It’s not something that happens on occasion to a few unlucky people, it happens fairly frequently to every artist. And it could happen right in the middle of a project. How strange is that? One minute you could be working on a painting, a story, a garment, anything, making really good time on it, or being really proud of it, and then all of a sudden, with absolutely no warning, artist block comes up and now you can barely remember how to even use your paintbrush. It’s the same one you’ve been using the whole time, but now it looks and feels like a foreign object in your hand. I’ve had moments where I even stare at the tool I’m using trying to figure out why, for the life of me, I feel like I can’t remember how to use it. Or it seems like I’ve never done it before. I do that a lot when I’m trying to force myself to design something new when I’m in the middle of a design idea drought; I can be sketching away, happy with how the ideas of flowing onto the page, and then all of a sudden I’ll forget how to draw. Every line is squiggly, and in the wrong place.. I won’t be able to get any of the shapes right, the shading will look forced and unnatural (which is saying something for a cartoon like sketch) and the proportions will be so off the figure on the page (which should have resembled a female human) now looks like some weird, alien creature. On those particular days, I don’t even attempt to draw a face, even a cartoony stick figure type of face, it would be the death of me. And then you can wake up one morning and have all of your skills back, as thought nothing ever happened. I’ve researched different ways to try and cure artist block, but I’ve learned that sometimes, no matter what you do, it won’t come back until it wants to. It’s as though my muse has gone on some sort of very long vacation far away and will come back as soon as shes good and ready.