#tips

Creativity and creative thinking have become quite the buzz words recently. But what do they even mean, and can you train yourself to improve them? Many believe that creativity and things like hard work, self-organization, and order simply can’t coexist. However, they are quite wrong – creative thinkers are experienced, versatile, and skilled people, and to become such a person requires hard work, dedication, and responsibility. Therefore, creativity combines thinking, skills, experience, an open mind, and the ability to learn regardless of age or context. 

Creativity means an open mind and open heart, something everyone can practice and improve with the right exercises and tools, keeping in mind that every exercise should help you get rid of narrow-mindedness and change your normal way of thinking. Here are some of our favourite exercises to develop creativity.

1.Grab an everyday item and try to come up with as many non-standard uses for it as you can. Let’s take a spoon, for instance. It’s a great utensil for sure, but it could also become a lamp, an art piece, or a marker for your vegetable patch.

2. Shake it up from time to time and try doing things differently! For instance, if you are used to having lunch at the same place every day, try a different restaurant for a change.

3. Try a different cuisine, walk home using a different route than you normally would, etc. Our life is full of small habits that trap us in our little boxes, if you think about it, so try opening this box of yours and stepping out and beyond it.

4. If you are facing any kind of a problem, don’t try solving it the usual way. People often tend to have the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mentality, but it was Einstein who said that madness is doing the same thing expecting different results. So next time you have to tackle a problem, don’t start working on a solution until you can come up with at least one alternative approach.

5. Engaging in any sort of creative activity is obviously a wonderful way to develop your creative thinking. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you enjoy it. You can draw, write poetry, compose song lyrics, or perhaps learn to play an instrument. The important thing is that getting great at whatever you choose is not the point – the point is to experience something new, to gain a new perspective, to help your brain start working differently. Because what is creativity if not a disruption of thinking and customary habits, actions, thoughts, and life flow?

6. Travelling or starting a new sport are also great for creativity. The general rule is that any new place or circumstance will greatly broaden your horizons and enhance your creativity. Just make sure to always travel with an open mind and open heart so you don’t miss anything new and exciting!

7. Work on your associative thinking and teach your brain to make dots between seemingly incoherent concepts to improve your memory and train your brain’s skill to combine different things. Not everyone is capable of making such associations right away, so use these tips and methods to work on your creativity, teach your brain to push boundaries and limits, question things and come up with unique solutions.

By the way, getting into drawing is also an amazing way to amp your creativity 😊 At Draw Planet, we have a wide selection of courses covering anything from classic drawing and painting all the way to computer graphics, so everyone can find something they like. Come join us and grow through your art!

If you want to get some useful tips on how to hang paintings, how to arrange them into one coherent composition, and how high you should hang them, keep reading!

Here are our tips on decorating your interior with pictures and paintings:

1. Arrange your pictures on the floor or against the wall before you start hammering in nails – this will help you see the whole composition and choose the final layout.

2. Determine the surface that will be taken up by the finished arrangement and keep it under 2/3 of the wall’s surface.
 
3. To make your pictures truly stand out, hang them on a light wall – it can be completely white, painted in pastel shades or covered with light wallpaper.

4. Horizontal pictures will make the wall look longer while vertical paintings will visually lift the ceiling.

5. It’s important to hang your pictures at the right height to make sure they are easy to see. Use the imaginary line passing right through the middle of a picture as a guide. The classic “museum style” approach is to hang the picture at 152 cm from the floor to this imaginary midline.

6. Consider hanging the pictures lower in the kitchen and the dining room, since you will likely be sitting at a table, not standing when you observe them.

7. If you don’t plan on simply placing your picture on the floor and letting it lean against the wall, don’t hang anything below 60 cm.

Interior picture layout: three basic methods
1. The symmetric approach

Symmetry is very harmonic, bringing a sense of order and allowing the viewer to comfortably take in the entire composition and making the home feel cosier. The pictures are hung to create a mirror image on every side of an imaginary midline. The bottom line can be aligned at the same height, or at a different height too – in that case, the pictures are hung on an imaginary horizontal midline.

2. Top or bottom alignment

You can choose to align pictures either at the top or the bottom line – you’ll be surprised how good it looks, giving the composition an anchoring point and a sense of stability and order.

3. The asymmetric approach

Asymmetry brings in a live dynamic sense, grabs the viewers attention and pulls everyone’s eyes to the wall and the composition. It also allows you to combine different picture sizes and formats, forcing you to think carefully about the entire layout. 

Keep in mind that creating a good asymmetric composition is not easy, requiring a keen sense of composition.

A beautiful, unique interior is something we all dream about, and surely many people have thought at some point – why don’t I paint something awesome on my walls with my own hands? The problem is, you immediately realize that you don’t know how – you’ve never done it before and perhaps you feel too left-handed to tackle something like that by yourself. But then, professional artists and designers are so expensive that ultimately you give up on that dream and slap on some wallpaper because it’s much easier. But what if you decide to fulfil this dream after all?

A wall is not a sketchbook – you don’t draw a random doodle that you just thought of on a wall. Choosing the right wall art image is almost as difficult as creating it – it has to match the style of the room, be in line with the room’s purpose and carry a certain emotion. There can be other purposes to it too, like making the room seem taller or hiding crooked walls. Most often, wall art is seen in children’s rooms because it brings them the most joy, especially when it’s their favourite cartoon characters on cute animals decorating their walls. 

But don’t despair, you can still decorate your wall with your own artwork, even if you aren’t exactly a professional artist!

Step 1. Choose your picture and determine how big it’s going to be. In this guide we assume that you are at the point when you already know where exactly your picture is going to be and why. The internet is overflowing with billions of pictures, but we suggest starting with something on the simple side – don’t attempt to paint a giant flaming dragon just yet.

Step 2. Prepare your wall – experts work on smooth, clean, well-painted surfaces, so take care to smooth out your wall and choose a colour that will work as a background for your wall art.

What kind of paint can you use?

Step 3. Get your supplies: paints, brushes, etc. Get two types of brushes: large flat brushes for big, wide strokes (you can go for natural or synthetic) and small, round brushes for details. Make sure to get  some cups and containers to clean your brushes and mix colours – get the single-use kind if you don’t want to sacrifice your dishes. As for the paints, all experts agree that you should only use matte, water-based acrylics – they are easy to mix and apply and they won’t smudge once dry. Mix white acrylic paint into your colours to achieve the desired shade. To achieve the desired level of liquidity (a consistency resembling sour cream with 15% fat content is ideal), simply add water, but be careful and don’t get too carried away – you could end up with ugly spots on your wall when the paint dries. Some artists like to cover the entire finished painting with an extra layer or two of matte acrylic wall coating just to be sure.

Step 4. Print out 5–10 copies of your template in black and white to create something like a sketch. Choose the background colour carefully – the same colour can look very different on a white or green background, so take care to choose colours that work well together. If your chosen painting contains lots of repeating elements (like leaves), it’s a good idea to make simple stencils before you begin.

Step 5. Now use a pencil to lay down a basic sketch on the wall. Avoid black pencils – they are very hard to erase and tend to leave ugly smudges. A soft coloured pencil is a much better option here since you can correct mistakes simply, with a large soft eraser. The better your sketch, the easier the painting stage will be. People who struggle with spatial orientation can use a grid – draw it on your printed template and on the wall. It will divide the image in smaller pieces, making it easier for you to transfer it from paper to the wall.

Step 6. Grab your acrylics and start painting! Always mix your colours right before you use them since acrylics dry very quickly. Don’t forget to repeat strokes to give your painting a more natural, three-dimensional look; just make sure to let the previous layer dry before going over the same spot again. Hold your brushes perpendicular to the wall. Use small brushes to correct any mistakes and move from the large brushes at the start to small brushes towards the end, adding the smallest details last – this way you can easily create volume, reflecting sun, and other natural effects in your wall art.

That’s everything you need to know to paint your own wall – good luck! And for those who would like to learn more about interiors, we invite you to register for our amazing interior design course where you will learn how to work with a floor plan, how to combine colours or even how to use a computer to create your interior in 3D!

How do people take good photos of their artwork? And how do they publish them online?! Keep reading to learn their secrets!

Being a good artist is not enough these days – you also need to know how to make your art look good online. Photos of your art need to be as good as the artworks themselves to make the best impression on the viewers. Luckily, this article will help you take better pictures and teach you how to post them on social media and get the engagement and audience they deserve. 

Lighting

Good lighting is the number one factor in photographic quality. If you don’t have professional lighting equipment, use daylight to take photos of your artwork. Don’t rely on interior artificial lights – instead, take your picture outside, to the balcony, or at least place it close to a window. Avoid using a flash – it will create a strong reflection that never looks good. 

An overcast afternoon will offer the best possible lighting conditions (outside, of course). It is key that the light hits your artwork at an angle, not directly from above!

Photographing large paintings is a bit more difficult since it is likely that the lighting will be uneven. Luckily, there is a simple trick to help – place a large sheet of white paper next to the side of the painting with less light hitting it. Don’t worry about unwanted items in your frame – you can edit them out later.

You can showcase a picture simply by photographing it, or you can choose to get more creative and create an entire composition with brushes, pencils, paints and other items strewn around your artwork. Look for inspiration online and adapt the ideas that you like to suit your style and work.

Take time to learn to photograph and present your work in an attractive way – trust us, it will pay off! After putting so much effort into your work, it would be a shame to have a sloppy online presentation that doesn’t do it justice. 

Got nothing to present yet? Choose one of our courses and learn to make amazing artworks worthy of online presentation with us!