Art block doesn’t exist

You have to paint every day if you want to succeed. Look at so-and-so, he/she’s succeeding because he/she’s decided to devote 100% to his/her art.
This is the kind of phrase that’s shared all over the internet, everywhere you’re made to feel guilty about the fact that you’re not doing enough. This kind of mantra can work if you’re a student, if you’re not in a relationship, if you live with your parents, if you don’t suffer from an illness.

The reality is that most artists have a job that takes up 8 hours of their time. Otherwise, all the artists you know would be exhibited in the Louvre! And what about artists with young children? And those who raise their children alone?

The reality is that you can’t practice your art every day, and when I say you can’t practice your art every day, I’m talking about the conclusion. Are you happy when your daily painting sucks? And that you erase everything because you know you’ll only get 3 likes? Let’s face it, we’re slaves to likes. So yes, it’s contradictory with this blog post where I explain that I paint every day, but by “every day”, I’m not talking about weekends where I spend time with my wife and kids. I’m not talking about days when I doubt my ability to paint, or days when I have to write film scripts.

No, being an artist isn’t just about producing, it’s also about asking questions: without expecting answers. We take our tools, we share a point of view on a subject, in an extraordinary way… people like it? dislike it? It’s out of our hands, so we carry on, next question, we produce, we produce, we produce.

There are days when you’re lazy, it’s normal, you’re human, but you can make sure this laziness doesn’t block you, you can spend time on google arts & culture, study the work of masters from other eras, you can open a book, take a page at random, read a paragraph and close it immediately, you can go for a walk in a park, take the time to breathe less polluted air, admire the precision of dahlia petals, you can also write, open a blog, share your vision.

By setting yourself the goal of writing down what’s on your mind every day, your vision becomes clearer, and that’s the best way to stop having an art block. Art block doesn’t exist, it’s a myth, you know you can paint anything, you’re just worried about likes on Instagram.

And that’s your art block.