August 24, 2025 • 24 mins
Creative constraints are the secret sauce to unlocking our artistic potential, and that's exactly what we're diving into today! Join me, Timothy Kimo' Brien, as we explore how limitations can actually fuel creativity instead of stifling it. Ever find yourself overwhelmed by the endless possibilities? Well, we're flipping the script and chatting about how embracing what we lack can lead to some pretty awesome breakthroughs in our art. From experimenting with just two colors to setting time limits on our creations, we’ll share playful strategies to help you turn those pesky constraints into your best pals. So grab your metaphorical paintbrush and stick around—let’s get those creative juices flowing!
In this episode of The Create Art Podcast, we explore the surprising power of creative constraints — how setting limits can actually unlock your imagination and help you produce your best work. Whether you’re an artist, writer, musician, or creative thinker, you’ll learn how restrictions can spark innovation, focus your energy, and build momentum.
We’ll cover:
- How to use time limits to prevent overthinking.
- Why limiting tools and materials can make you more inventive.
- Ways to set theme or subject constraints to challenge your creativity.
You’ll also get practical tips and real-world examples to help you embrace limitations in your own projects.
✨ Perfect for:
Beginner and experienced artists who feel overwhelmed by too many choices or stuck in perfectionism.
1. Why Constraints Fuel Creativity
- Boundaries create focus. Too many options can be overwhelming—constraints help channel energy into action.
- History backs it up. Many famous works came from working within tight budgets, tools, or time limits.
2. Types of Constraints You Can Try
- Material limits. Use only two colors, one brush, or one instrument.
- Time limits. Set a 30-minute creation window to encourage quick decision-making.
3. How Constraints Push Skill Development
- Force you to problem-solve. You learn new ways to work with what you have.
- Promote resourcefulness. Creativity often thrives when you have to “make it work.”
4. Turning Constraints Into Challenges
- Make it playful. Treat it as a game, not a punishment.
- Join a community challenge. Prompts like Inktober or “One Week Album” provide ready-made structure.
5. Breaking the Rules
- Know when to step out. Once the constraint has served its purpose, remove it.
- Mix freedom and structure. Alternate between constraint periods and open exploration.
Creative constraints can be the best friends of artists and creators, pushing us to innovate and think outside the box. As Timothy Kimo Brien dives into this topic on today's Create Art Podcast, he emphasizes how limitations can actually fuel our creativity rather than stifle it. Picture this: you’re an artist with a blank canvas and an array of colors, but what if you only had two colors to work with? You might think it would limit your expression, but the challenge could spark new ideas, leading to a masterpiece you never imagined. Tim shares personal anecdotes, including his experiences in art classes where constraints led to unexpected and delightful results. He argues that creative boundaries, whether they be in materials, time, or technique, can help us hone our skills and develop a deeper appreciation for the process of...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey there, friend.
So this is going to seemcounterintuitive, but because we're.
You and I are creatives andartists and all that good stuff,
and we want to have the wholeworld at our feet and all the tools
and all that kind of stuff,but you and I live in the real world.
(00:24):
What happens when we don'thave all the stuff that we want or
that we think we need?
Because there's a differencebetween need and want.
So that's what we're going totalk about today on Create Art Podcast.
We're going to talk aboutusing those creative constraints
(00:44):
to making our art better.
Stick around.
(01:09):
Hey there.
This is Timothy Keem o',Brien, your head instigator for Create
Art Podcast, where I bring myover 30 years of experience in the
arts and education world tohelp you tame more than your.
To help you tame your criticand create more than you consume.
I only have so much time to do this.
(01:30):
That is a creative constraint,and that's what we're going to be
talking about here on today's episode.
Now, I've started a new seriesbecause you all know that I like
doing series, and this is thenew Artist Compass series.
So I'm going to be havingconversations with other artists.
(01:50):
Not interviews, butconversations with other artists,
and doing solo episodes likethis, where I'm gonna be tackling
a lot of these topics that newartists think about.
And creative constraints isdefinitely something that we all
need to think about, becausewe don't start with a full palette
(02:15):
with all these great brushesand these fantastic canvases.
We start at zero.
It's kind of like when we comeout of the womb and we start at zero.
We're raw and naked andthere's bright lights and people
smacking our butts.
That's where we start off with.
(02:35):
We all start off with the same way.
The same way.
Just like with a podcast, youstart off with zero listeners, zero
downloads.
And then you build somethingand build something, and you learn
better ways, and you learn tolive within your means.
So let's get talking aboutthis subject of creative constraints.
(03:02):
So why do creative constraintsreally matter?
I mean, you know, we're artists.
We want to do everything.
We want the world to be our oyster.
But why do we need constraints?
Well, I think it's importantbecause they do fuel creativity.
You know, the boundaries thatwe impose on ourselves or that we
(03:24):
have others impose on uscreate a certain type of focus.
Let me give you an example.
So one of my favorite TVsitcoms is MASH, and it was a sitcom
in the 70s and early 80s.
And my favorite character, itwas all about this army unit in the
(03:44):
Korean War, and they're amedical unit, a lot of crazy hijinks
ensues.
But my favorite character fromthere was Radar.
Now, he was the company clerk.
And the reason why he was myfavorite is he thought up all kinds
of ways to help out the doctors.
Now, he wasn't a doctor himself.
(04:05):
As a matter of fact, heprobably fainted the sight of blood.
And he drank grape knee high.
And he was a nerdy kind ofguy, but he found that with lack
of supplies, lack of support,he was able to actually run this
mobile hospital under twodifferent commanders who had two
(04:26):
different command styles.
And he was able to thrive and,you know, flourish under those.
So.
Whereas he was probably themost important person on that base.
So when we have too manyoptions, when we have everything
given to us, and this is goingto sound like old man Tim here, but
(04:48):
if we're given everything andwe can do anything, wave our magic
wands, we don't want toappreciate what we have, and we don't
learn to go around these boundaries.
We don't learn to expandourself beyond whatever boundary
that we have.
(05:08):
So finding creative waysaround it.
If we're not, if we don't havesomething, then we improvise with
something else.
And maybe that new tool is thetool that we really love and we're
going to use forever and webecome the master of that new tool
that we either invented or we repurposed.
(05:30):
Now, history backs us up on this.
You know, there's a lot offamous works that came out from working
with, like in tight budgets,tools or time limits.
Let's look at the, the, theEgyptian pyramids.
We probably can't recreatethose in the same way, shape or style,
but they had none of the stuffthat we have.
(05:53):
Now.
They don't have a.
They didn't have AI as far aswe know.
Now there's some, you know,conspiracy theories that thinks that
aliens did that.
Well, let's look at Easter Island.
Let's look at Stonehenge.
You know, those folks werelimited with what they could do with
the tools that they had, thesupplies that they had, the knowledge
(06:13):
that they had, but look whatthey created.
Now, I'm not telling you thatyou're going to create the next Stonehenge
or Easter island statues orthe next Egyptian pyramids, but if
you don't have everything thatyou need, I'm going to challenge
you to find ways around that.
Repurpose Something else.
Or invent whatever tool thatyou need in whatever artistic practice
(06:37):
that you're involved with.
Because when we do that, wedevelop a really good appreciation
for our talents and for our ingenuity.
And adding that ingenuity tocreativity is just going to make
something so much better.
(07:00):
All right, so right now you'reprobably thinking, okay, Tim, okay,
I'm going to.
I'm going to try thisconstraint theory, you know, to fuel
my creativity.
But what constraints can I try?
Well, here's another oxymoron,I guess.
Or something else.
There are a ton that you cantry out there.
I'm just going to give you acouple of examples here.
(07:22):
So let's say your work dealswith materials, right?
Let's say you're a painter.
So why don't you try to do apainting with just two colors?
Maybe it's a gray and blue ora green and yellow.
Just use two different colors.
(07:43):
Different shades in those colors.
That's where the creativitycomes in.
Because I'm just saying twocolors, you can.
You can immediately jump to.
Well, he didn't say I couldn'tuse different shades of those colors,
did he?
No.
How about just using one brush?
Or here's something that.
That we can bring right to the forefront.
(08:04):
Bob Ross.
And I love Bob Ross.
Okay?
I've seen him do paintingsjust with a palette knife.
Just with a palette knife.
No brush.
Just using a palette knife todo it.
You know, I've seen YouTubevideos of people using combs, just
combs with hair.
Now, of course, I don't havethat much hair, so I don't know what
a comb is, but just usingcombs and acrylic paint just to do
(08:28):
these wonderful abstract paintings.
Or maybe you just go, you know what?
I love abstract painting, butI'm going to do.
I'm going to do a portrait ina conventional and conventional style.
There you go.
There's your constraint right there.
Challenge yourself to do that,because you might find that it works
out really good.
(08:50):
Another thing that you coulddo is time limits.
So why don't you get startedon something and set a timer.
You know, do an egg timer ordo a timer on your phone and set
it for 30 minutes.
You have 30 minutes to create something.
Go.
And then when that timerdings, you stop.
(09:10):
No matter where you're at, you stop.
Something that I did incollege, I took a drawing class.
I'm a theater guy, but I'malso a designer and, you know, sketch
drawing class.
I was like, and let's give ita Shot should be fun.
And I've told this storybefore about the instructor that
(09:31):
was there.
He was from the UK and heloved techno music.
So what he would do is hewould set up a, a scene.
One of the best ones I reallyloved is he set up all these chairs
and then put a tarp over itand said, draw that.
So we're all sitting in ourspots in different areas around the
room.
And he had a timer.
(09:52):
So every like two minutes,timer would go off.
All right, switch.
And we would go to the personnext to us, we'd go to theirs and
add to whatever drawing they had.
And we would do this untileveryone had been to everyone's station
and took the whole class hour.
(10:13):
And then we, we showed people,you know, we showed our work there.
And some of it was fantastic,some of it looked like mud.
But getting that differentperspective, you know, sitting in
the same seat as somebody elsebut getting that different perspective
on whatever it is you'retrying to create, some of the stuff
(10:35):
came out to be just wonderful,just mind boggling ly wonderful.
And the goal of that was toteach us, you know, hey, you know,
different perspectives.
But also it was a great way toadd in a constraint.
You got 30 seconds to do itfrom your view.
Go.
(11:01):
All right, so we've talkedabout constraints are good for your
creativity.
Some types you can try for yourself.
But how does it work?
I mean really, how does it work?
Well, the first idea is thatit's going to force you to problem
solve.
So you don't have the world'sgreatest brush.
(11:24):
Do you need it?
Can you use like a squeegee?
Something I've recently seenonline is somebody taking a couple
of drops of acrylic paint andthen just taking a squeegee and just
moving it around or, you know, taking.
Somebody doesn't know reallyhow to draw a.
(11:44):
This is one of my kids favorites.
Let's say you didn't reallyknow how to draw a.
A woman standing in the rainwith an umbrella.
So what I saw this person do is.
And I don't know if they can'tdraw it or not, but what I saw this
person do is tape up a, acanvas and then have, you know, some
(12:04):
sort of overlay on that andthen cut out the overlay of a woman
using an umbrella kind of in a rainstorm.
And what they did is they cutthat out and then they just, you
know, went all over the placewith a bunch of different colors.
(12:24):
And once they took the tapeoff of the canvas, what you Saw there
is a bunch of white spacearound the woman with an umbrella
in kind of a rain storm area.
But all the colors were justall over the place.
And they were.
It was fantastic to view itand to.
And to see it done.
So that's a way for you toproblem solve.
(12:48):
Another thing that pushes yourskill development is it promotes
resourcefulness.
So, again, you don't have theworld's greatest brush.
Well, what do you have thatyou can use?
And again, that's where thatingenuity comes into it.
That's the problem solvingthat is.
You know, or maybe you do havea great brush, but you're tired of
(13:11):
using it.
You want to use something else.
All right, well, then you gofind something else to use, like
a palette knife or a comb or Q tips.
I've seen this happen before,is, you know, you want to put some
splatter and dots on your.
On your painting that you'vealready done, just, you know, dipping
some Q tips in there and thenjust kind of flicking or a toothbrush
(13:32):
kind of flicking it around.
Why not?
You know, you have it.
Everyone's got it.
Well, not everyone, but mostpeople have a toothbrush laying around
the house that they're not using.
You could use that to paintyour next masterpiece.
So, you know, just think about that.
It really.
(13:52):
You don't have to use thestandard tools for whatever art you're
in.
You can always find somethingelse to make art, and then the challenge
is to make it as good or ifnot better than somebody that's using
it with standard tools.
Besides, who wants to be standard?
I mean, you're a creative, I'ma creative.
(14:14):
I'm not standard.
I am not even on the chart,and I don't want to be on the chart.
So give that a shot for yourself.
So let's take theseconstraints that we're going to use
to help us with ourcreativity, with our problem solving,
(14:34):
with our ingenuity, and let'sturn them into challenges.
First things first.
Not a punishment.
I'm not smacking you on thehand and going, okay, you can only
use 15 letters in this nextpoem you're gonna write.
I'm not trying to make it apunishment for you.
What I'm trying to do is I'mtrying to help you with your inspiration,
(14:57):
that elusive muse, inspiration.
Make it fun for yourself.
You know, just make whateverthe challenge is that you're gonna
give yourself, whateverconstraint you're gonna give yourself,
maybe you're just paintingwith your left hand instead of your
right hand.
If you're righty.
Or swap it up.
Maybe you're used to playing ainstrument in the bass clef, and
(15:22):
now you want to switch thatand work in the treble clef.
And so you switch up aninstrument and do it like that, whatever
it is, make it fun.
Now, you can do that on yourown, and that's perfectly fine.
But what I find is really goodis when it's a community challenge,
(15:44):
when other people are doingthe challenge right alongside you.
So that way you can share yourhorror stories, share your successes,
ask questions, and find outwhat other people are doing and maybe
get some help with it, maybemaster your craft even more.
So definitely make it fun anddo it with other people.
(16:06):
Because a lot of times, usartists, we like to, you know, just
do everything on our own andall that kind of good stuff.
But, you know, there's acommunity of us out there.
You're watching this video oryou're listening to this podcast.
You're part of my community,and I'm part of your community now.
So do that challenge.
(16:26):
Do it in public.
Sometimes we just got to pullour pants down and dance a jig in
the town square.
That's what we got to do.
So he's showing our warts and all.
So I'm going to challenge youto find something that's fun and
find something that's outthere, that's in the community, that's
(16:46):
already being done, that youcan participate in.
All right.
We've found our fun challenge,and, you know, we're buying into
this whole idea of these constraints.
These challenges are going toenhance our creativity, which they
(17:09):
will.
Now, I'm going to ask you tobe your most artistic self here,
to be your biggest rebel andbreak the rules.
Just absolutely break them.
So one thing that I do is I donational poetry months in April.
And what that is, it's.
(17:30):
They give you 30 prompts in 30days, and you write 30 poems.
A lot of times the prompts arereally cool, and there's, you know,
thousands and thousands ofpeople doing it across the United
States, and they participateand they share their poems, and it's
to, you know, I promote poetry.
Well, sometimes I'll followthe prompt.
Other times I'll find adifferent prompt to do.
(17:55):
Or if the prompt is a really a.
A piece that, you know, youcan only do, you know, 13 lines.
Well, I'll think to myself,okay, so I can only have 13 lines
in here.
How am I going to count?
A line is a line.
One thought 13 times, youknow, that I Can break up or, you
(18:17):
know, let's say the piece issupposed to be about flowers.
Does it have to be flowersthat are based on Earth flowers?
Could be Saturn flowers.
Who knows?
A Saturn has flowers, and Ichallenge you, go to Saturn, find
out if it has flowers.
If you don't, if you don'tthink it does, then burden of proof
is on you, because I saySaturn has flowers.
(18:37):
So know when to break out of that.
Find ways to look at thosewalls that we constrain ourselves
in and find ways around them.
Sometimes you stick a thing ofC4 on the wall and blow it up.
Sometimes you go over thewall, build a ladder, go over the
wall, dig a hole, gounderneath the wall, run as far as
(18:59):
you can down one direction,see if there's a door at the end
of that wall, but find waysaround that wall that's going to
be fun for you, and then mixthose constraints with the freedom
that they actually provide youbecause they're giving you.
(19:20):
They're putting you in a box,let's say.
So how can we decorate that box?
How can we, you know, makethat boring, drab box something that's
wonderful?
Maybe it's wonderful on theinside and people can only view it
a certain way.
Perfect.
You've got the lesson.
You understand what to do.
(19:41):
So find ways that you canfollow the rules or follow the constraints
per se, and then find ways tobreak out of those constraints where
you can show the structure andthen how you exploded out of the
structure.
You can do that with justabout anything.
And, oh, gosh, there's yourinspiration right there.
(20:05):
So that elusive muse, thatelusive inspiration that I used to
buy into and think, you know,well, you know, I'm not inspired
yet.
The muse hasn't hit me yet.
Yet there it is right there.
It's, you know, tapping you onthe forehead, going, hey, I'm right
here.
Do it.
Make it happen.
Give that a shot for yourself.
(20:29):
All right.
Well, I hope you got somethingout of today's episode.
I know I certainly did.
I'm challenging myself andlooking at different kinds of constraints.
One of the constraints,obviously, is doing a YouTube channel
and knowing, you know, playingaround with it and seeing what I
can do with it.
I want to know what's going onwith you.
You can email metimothyreateartpodcast.com if you
(20:53):
want to join in theseconversations about all the topics
I'll be talking about in this series.
Email me, let me know what youwould like to do.
If you check the show notes,you can see a list of the topics
I will be covering.
So do that for yourself if youwant to be part of this.
If you have some critiques onthe show, want to hear about it?
(21:14):
You know, should I do more of this?
Less of this, more guests,less guests?
Should I just shut up and, youknow, have AI do my voice?
Whatever the critique is, I'mbig guy, I can take it.
So let me know what you'rethinking about the show.
Now I do, you know, want youto go ahead and share the show as
well.
So, you know, if you'rewatching on YouTube, you know, share,
(21:36):
you know, hit the like buttonand make sure that you're subscribed
to the channel.
If you're listening onto apodcast, your podcast app, whichever
one you're using, usually hasa share function on it.
So go ahead and hit that share function.
Share it with a friend that isan artist, they claim to be an artist
or they're just thinking aboutbeing an artist.
(21:58):
Share this episode with them.
Share all my episodes with them.
And you know, that's a nicegift that you can give somebody.
I want to talk about a coupleof things here.
My other podcast is find apodcast about.
You can find that@findapodcast about.xyz.
and that's where I help youfind your next binge worthy podcast
and outsmart the algorithm.
(22:19):
Check it out.
It's been on a little bit of ahiatus recently, but it's coming
back.
And then I started up my ownbusiness, TKB Podcast Studio.
You can find it attkbpodcaststudio.com and that's where
I help you lead through thenoise with quiet professionalism
(22:39):
and get your podcast idea.
All the way from idea toproduction and publishing.
I help you out with that.
So if you're interested indoing something like that, give it
a look.
See?
All right, that's all I havefor you here today.
I want to thank you forjoining me, spending some time with
me and in our constrained timething here, you know, a lot of people
(23:06):
say that, you know, we haveattention spans of goldfish going
on here and that's aconstraint too.
So I want to thank you fortaking time out of your day, whatever
constraints that you havethere, and talking here with me about
using creative constraints toreally embolden, inspire and really
(23:29):
just enlarge your creativity.
So go out there, tame thatinner critic, create more than you
consume, find ways toconstrain yourself and then find
ways around them or over themor through them, or build up a transporter
(23:50):
and transport yourself to theother side of the wall.
I can't wait to hear whatyou've done.
Now go make some art forsomebody you love.
Yourself.
I'll talk to you next time, Sam.
Hey there, friend.
So this is going to seemcounterintuitive, but because we're.
You and I are creatives andartists and all that good stuff,
and we want to have the wholeworld at our feet and all the tools
and all that kind of stuff,but you and I live in the real world.
(00:24):
What happens when we don'thave all the stuff that we want or
that we think we need?
Because there's a differencebetween need and want.
So that's what we're going totalk about today on Create Art Podcast.
We're going to talk aboutusing those creative constraints
(00:44):
to making our art better.
Stick around.
(01:09):
Hey there.
This is Timothy Keem o',Brien, your head instigator for Create
Art Podcast, where I bring myover 30 years of experience in the
arts and education world tohelp you tame more than your.
To help you tame your criticand create more than you consume.
I only have so much time to do this.
(01:30):
That is a creative constraint,and that's what we're going to be
talking about here on today's episode.
Now, I've started a new seriesbecause you all know that I like
doing series, and this is thenew Artist Compass series.
So I'm going to be havingconversations with other artists.
(01:50):
Not interviews, butconversations with other artists,
and doing solo episodes likethis, where I'm gonna be tackling
a lot of these topics that newartists think about.
And creative constraints isdefinitely something that we all
need to think about, becausewe don't start with a full palette
(02:15):
with all these great brushesand these fantastic canvases.
We start at zero.
It's kind of like when we comeout of the womb and we start at zero.
We're raw and naked andthere's bright lights and people
smacking our butts.
That's where we start off with.
(02:35):
We all start off with the same way.
The same way.
Just like with a podcast, youstart off with zero listeners, zero
downloads.
And then you build somethingand build something, and you learn
better ways, and you learn tolive within your means.
So let's get talking aboutthis subject of creative constraints.
(03:02):
So why do creative constraintsreally matter?
I mean, you know, we're artists.
We want to do everything.
We want the world to be our oyster.
But why do we need constraints?
Well, I think it's importantbecause they do fuel creativity.
You know, the boundaries thatwe impose on ourselves or that we
(03:24):
have others impose on uscreate a certain type of focus.
Let me give you an example.
So one of my favorite TVsitcoms is MASH, and it was a sitcom
in the 70s and early 80s.
And my favorite character, itwas all about this army unit in the
(03:44):
Korean War, and they're amedical unit, a lot of crazy hijinks
ensues.
But my favorite character fromthere was Radar.
Now, he was the company clerk.
And the reason why he was myfavorite is he thought up all kinds
of ways to help out the doctors.
Now, he wasn't a doctor himself.
(04:05):
As a matter of fact, heprobably fainted the sight of blood.
And he drank grape knee high.
And he was a nerdy kind ofguy, but he found that with lack
of supplies, lack of support,he was able to actually run this
mobile hospital under twodifferent commanders who had two
(04:26):
different command styles.
And he was able to thrive and,you know, flourish under those.
So.
Whereas he was probably themost important person on that base.
So when we have too manyoptions, when we have everything
given to us, and this is goingto sound like old man Tim here, but
(04:48):
if we're given everything andwe can do anything, wave our magic
wands, we don't want toappreciate what we have, and we don't
learn to go around these boundaries.
We don't learn to expandourself beyond whatever boundary
that we have.
(05:08):
So finding creative waysaround it.
If we're not, if we don't havesomething, then we improvise with
something else.
And maybe that new tool is thetool that we really love and we're
going to use forever and webecome the master of that new tool
that we either invented or we repurposed.
(05:30):
Now, history backs us up on this.
You know, there's a lot offamous works that came out from working
with, like in tight budgets,tools or time limits.
Let's look at the, the, theEgyptian pyramids.
We probably can't recreatethose in the same way, shape or style,
but they had none of the stuffthat we have.
(05:53):
Now.
They don't have a.
They didn't have AI as far aswe know.
Now there's some, you know,conspiracy theories that thinks that
aliens did that.
Well, let's look at Easter Island.
Let's look at Stonehenge.
You know, those folks werelimited with what they could do with
the tools that they had, thesupplies that they had, the knowledge
(06:13):
that they had, but look whatthey created.
Now, I'm not telling you thatyou're going to create the next Stonehenge
or Easter island statues orthe next Egyptian pyramids, but if
you don't have everything thatyou need, I'm going to challenge
you to find ways around that.
Repurpose Something else.
Or invent whatever tool thatyou need in whatever artistic practice
(06:37):
that you're involved with.
Because when we do that, wedevelop a really good appreciation
for our talents and for our ingenuity.
And adding that ingenuity tocreativity is just going to make
something so much better.
(07:00):
All right, so right now you'reprobably thinking, okay, Tim, okay,
I'm going to.
I'm going to try thisconstraint theory, you know, to fuel
my creativity.
But what constraints can I try?
Well, here's another oxymoron,I guess.
Or something else.
There are a ton that you cantry out there.
I'm just going to give you acouple of examples here.
(07:22):
So let's say your work dealswith materials, right?
Let's say you're a painter.
So why don't you try to do apainting with just two colors?
Maybe it's a gray and blue ora green and yellow.
Just use two different colors.
(07:43):
Different shades in those colors.
That's where the creativitycomes in.
Because I'm just saying twocolors, you can.
You can immediately jump to.
Well, he didn't say I couldn'tuse different shades of those colors,
did he?
No.
How about just using one brush?
Or here's something that.
That we can bring right to the forefront.
(08:04):
Bob Ross.
And I love Bob Ross.
Okay?
I've seen him do paintingsjust with a palette knife.
Just with a palette knife.
No brush.
Just using a palette knife todo it.
You know, I've seen YouTubevideos of people using combs, just
combs with hair.
Now, of course, I don't havethat much hair, so I don't know what
a comb is, but just usingcombs and acrylic paint just to do
(08:28):
these wonderful abstract paintings.
Or maybe you just go, you know what?
I love abstract painting, butI'm going to do.
I'm going to do a portrait ina conventional and conventional style.
There you go.
There's your constraint right there.
Challenge yourself to do that,because you might find that it works
out really good.
(08:50):
Another thing that you coulddo is time limits.
So why don't you get startedon something and set a timer.
You know, do an egg timer ordo a timer on your phone and set
it for 30 minutes.
You have 30 minutes to create something.
Go.
And then when that timerdings, you stop.
(09:10):
No matter where you're at, you stop.
Something that I did incollege, I took a drawing class.
I'm a theater guy, but I'malso a designer and, you know, sketch
drawing class.
I was like, and let's give ita Shot should be fun.
And I've told this storybefore about the instructor that
(09:31):
was there.
He was from the UK and heloved techno music.
So what he would do is hewould set up a, a scene.
One of the best ones I reallyloved is he set up all these chairs
and then put a tarp over itand said, draw that.
So we're all sitting in ourspots in different areas around the
room.
And he had a timer.
(09:52):
So every like two minutes,timer would go off.
All right, switch.
And we would go to the personnext to us, we'd go to theirs and
add to whatever drawing they had.
And we would do this untileveryone had been to everyone's station
and took the whole class hour.
(10:13):
And then we, we showed people,you know, we showed our work there.
And some of it was fantastic,some of it looked like mud.
But getting that differentperspective, you know, sitting in
the same seat as somebody elsebut getting that different perspective
on whatever it is you'retrying to create, some of the stuff
(10:35):
came out to be just wonderful,just mind boggling ly wonderful.
And the goal of that was toteach us, you know, hey, you know,
different perspectives.
But also it was a great way toadd in a constraint.
You got 30 seconds to do itfrom your view.
Go.
(11:01):
All right, so we've talkedabout constraints are good for your
creativity.
Some types you can try for yourself.
But how does it work?
I mean really, how does it work?
Well, the first idea is thatit's going to force you to problem
solve.
So you don't have the world'sgreatest brush.
(11:24):
Do you need it?
Can you use like a squeegee?
Something I've recently seenonline is somebody taking a couple
of drops of acrylic paint andthen just taking a squeegee and just
moving it around or, you know, taking.
Somebody doesn't know reallyhow to draw a.
(11:44):
This is one of my kids favorites.
Let's say you didn't reallyknow how to draw a.
A woman standing in the rainwith an umbrella.
So what I saw this person do is.
And I don't know if they can'tdraw it or not, but what I saw this
person do is tape up a, acanvas and then have, you know, some
(12:04):
sort of overlay on that andthen cut out the overlay of a woman
using an umbrella kind of in a rainstorm.
And what they did is they cutthat out and then they just, you
know, went all over the placewith a bunch of different colors.
(12:24):
And once they took the tapeoff of the canvas, what you Saw there
is a bunch of white spacearound the woman with an umbrella
in kind of a rain storm area.
But all the colors were justall over the place.
And they were.
It was fantastic to view itand to.
And to see it done.
So that's a way for you toproblem solve.
(12:48):
Another thing that pushes yourskill development is it promotes
resourcefulness.
So, again, you don't have theworld's greatest brush.
Well, what do you have thatyou can use?
And again, that's where thatingenuity comes into it.
That's the problem solvingthat is.
You know, or maybe you do havea great brush, but you're tired of
(13:11):
using it.
You want to use something else.
All right, well, then you gofind something else to use, like
a palette knife or a comb or Q tips.
I've seen this happen before,is, you know, you want to put some
splatter and dots on your.
On your painting that you'vealready done, just, you know, dipping
some Q tips in there and thenjust kind of flicking or a toothbrush
(13:32):
kind of flicking it around.
Why not?
You know, you have it.
Everyone's got it.
Well, not everyone, but mostpeople have a toothbrush laying around
the house that they're not using.
You could use that to paintyour next masterpiece.
So, you know, just think about that.
It really.
(13:52):
You don't have to use thestandard tools for whatever art you're
in.
You can always find somethingelse to make art, and then the challenge
is to make it as good or ifnot better than somebody that's using
it with standard tools.
Besides, who wants to be standard?
I mean, you're a creative, I'ma creative.
(14:14):
I'm not standard.
I am not even on the chart,and I don't want to be on the chart.
So give that a shot for yourself.
So let's take theseconstraints that we're going to use
to help us with ourcreativity, with our problem solving,
(14:34):
with our ingenuity, and let'sturn them into challenges.
First things first.
Not a punishment.
I'm not smacking you on thehand and going, okay, you can only
use 15 letters in this nextpoem you're gonna write.
I'm not trying to make it apunishment for you.
What I'm trying to do is I'mtrying to help you with your inspiration,
(14:57):
that elusive muse, inspiration.
Make it fun for yourself.
You know, just make whateverthe challenge is that you're gonna
give yourself, whateverconstraint you're gonna give yourself,
maybe you're just paintingwith your left hand instead of your
right hand.
If you're righty.
Or swap it up.
Maybe you're used to playing ainstrument in the bass clef, and
(15:22):
now you want to switch thatand work in the treble clef.
And so you switch up aninstrument and do it like that, whatever
it is, make it fun.
Now, you can do that on yourown, and that's perfectly fine.
But what I find is really goodis when it's a community challenge,
(15:44):
when other people are doingthe challenge right alongside you.
So that way you can share yourhorror stories, share your successes,
ask questions, and find outwhat other people are doing and maybe
get some help with it, maybemaster your craft even more.
So definitely make it fun anddo it with other people.
(16:06):
Because a lot of times, usartists, we like to, you know, just
do everything on our own andall that kind of good stuff.
But, you know, there's acommunity of us out there.
You're watching this video oryou're listening to this podcast.
You're part of my community,and I'm part of your community now.
So do that challenge.
(16:26):
Do it in public.
Sometimes we just got to pullour pants down and dance a jig in
the town square.
That's what we got to do.
So he's showing our warts and all.
So I'm going to challenge youto find something that's fun and
find something that's outthere, that's in the community, that's
(16:46):
already being done, that youcan participate in.
All right.
We've found our fun challenge,and, you know, we're buying into
this whole idea of these constraints.
These challenges are going toenhance our creativity, which they
(17:09):
will.
Now, I'm going to ask you tobe your most artistic self here,
to be your biggest rebel andbreak the rules.
Just absolutely break them.
So one thing that I do is I donational poetry months in April.
And what that is, it's.
(17:30):
They give you 30 prompts in 30days, and you write 30 poems.
A lot of times the prompts arereally cool, and there's, you know,
thousands and thousands ofpeople doing it across the United
States, and they participateand they share their poems, and it's
to, you know, I promote poetry.
Well, sometimes I'll followthe prompt.
Other times I'll find adifferent prompt to do.
(17:55):
Or if the prompt is a really a.
A piece that, you know, youcan only do, you know, 13 lines.
Well, I'll think to myself,okay, so I can only have 13 lines
in here.
How am I going to count?
A line is a line.
One thought 13 times, youknow, that I Can break up or, you
(18:17):
know, let's say the piece issupposed to be about flowers.
Does it have to be flowersthat are based on Earth flowers?
Could be Saturn flowers.
Who knows?
A Saturn has flowers, and Ichallenge you, go to Saturn, find
out if it has flowers.
If you don't, if you don'tthink it does, then burden of proof
is on you, because I saySaturn has flowers.
(18:37):
So know when to break out of that.
Find ways to look at thosewalls that we constrain ourselves
in and find ways around them.
Sometimes you stick a thing ofC4 on the wall and blow it up.
Sometimes you go over thewall, build a ladder, go over the
wall, dig a hole, gounderneath the wall, run as far as
(18:59):
you can down one direction,see if there's a door at the end
of that wall, but find waysaround that wall that's going to
be fun for you, and then mixthose constraints with the freedom
that they actually provide youbecause they're giving you.
(19:20):
They're putting you in a box,let's say.
So how can we decorate that box?
How can we, you know, makethat boring, drab box something that's
wonderful?
Maybe it's wonderful on theinside and people can only view it
a certain way.
Perfect.
You've got the lesson.
You understand what to do.
(19:41):
So find ways that you canfollow the rules or follow the constraints
per se, and then find ways tobreak out of those constraints where
you can show the structure andthen how you exploded out of the
structure.
You can do that with justabout anything.
And, oh, gosh, there's yourinspiration right there.
(20:05):
So that elusive muse, thatelusive inspiration that I used to
buy into and think, you know,well, you know, I'm not inspired
yet.
The muse hasn't hit me yet.
Yet there it is right there.
It's, you know, tapping you onthe forehead, going, hey, I'm right
here.
Do it.
Make it happen.
Give that a shot for yourself.
(20:29):
All right.
Well, I hope you got somethingout of today's episode.
I know I certainly did.
I'm challenging myself andlooking at different kinds of constraints.
One of the constraints,obviously, is doing a YouTube channel
and knowing, you know, playingaround with it and seeing what I
can do with it.
I want to know what's going onwith you.
You can email metimothyreateartpodcast.com if you
(20:53):
want to join in theseconversations about all the topics
I'll be talking about in this series.
Email me, let me know what youwould like to do.
If you check the show notes,you can see a list of the topics
I will be covering.
So do that for yourself if youwant to be part of this.
If you have some critiques onthe show, want to hear about it?
(21:14):
You know, should I do more of this?
Less of this, more guests,less guests?
Should I just shut up and, youknow, have AI do my voice?
Whatever the critique is, I'mbig guy, I can take it.
So let me know what you'rethinking about the show.
Now I do, you know, want youto go ahead and share the show as
well.
So, you know, if you'rewatching on YouTube, you know, share,
(21:36):
you know, hit the like buttonand make sure that you're subscribed
to the channel.
If you're listening onto apodcast, your podcast app, whichever
one you're using, usually hasa share function on it.
So go ahead and hit that share function.
Share it with a friend that isan artist, they claim to be an artist
or they're just thinking aboutbeing an artist.
(21:58):
Share this episode with them.
Share all my episodes with them.
And you know, that's a nicegift that you can give somebody.
I want to talk about a coupleof things here.
My other podcast is find apodcast about.
You can find that@findapodcast about.xyz.
and that's where I help youfind your next binge worthy podcast
and outsmart the algorithm.
(22:19):
Check it out.
It's been on a little bit of ahiatus recently, but it's coming
back.
And then I started up my ownbusiness, TKB Podcast Studio.
You can find it attkbpodcaststudio.com and that's where
I help you lead through thenoise with quiet professionalism
(22:39):
and get your podcast idea.
All the way from idea toproduction and publishing.
I help you out with that.
So if you're interested indoing something like that, give it
a look.
See?
All right, that's all I havefor you here today.
I want to thank you forjoining me, spending some time with
me and in our constrained timething here, you know, a lot of people
(23:06):
say that, you know, we haveattention spans of goldfish going
on here and that's aconstraint too.
So I want to thank you fortaking time out of your day, whatever
constraints that you havethere, and talking here with me about
using creative constraints toreally embolden, inspire and really
(23:29):
just enlarge your creativity.
So go out there, tame thatinner critic, create more than you
consume, find ways toconstrain yourself and then find
ways around them or over themor through them, or build up a transporter
(23:50):
and transport yourself to theother side of the wall.
I can't wait to hear whatyou've done.
Now go make some art forsomebody you love.
Yourself.
I'll talk to you next time, Sam.
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