Finding Creative Spaces and Inspiration Without an Art Studio

I often think about the environment I surround myself with whenever I create any drawing or writing piece (including this blog post). Maybe it’s my OCD for seeing organised space kicking in, but I find myself curious what makes an environment ‘ok’ to create in - particularly when there’s no constant space to create in, like an art studio.

For context, I share a bedroom with my sister, and let's say, there's not enough space for this room to hold the belongings of two women in their twenties and spread out art materials simultaneously. Typically, when I create, I'm downstairs in the dining room, where I selfishly spread my art materials across the large table and take advantage of the natural light seeping through the windows. Despite the dining room being my current designated place for creating, I’ve been leaning towards finding alternative spaces to draw, write and journal.

Like myself, I expect that not everyone has an art studio, so today I share some environments I've found myself enjoying creating and finding inspiration in.

Cafés

Being a sucker for flat whites and minimalistic cosy environments, my first port of call was cafés. The dim lighting and subtle jazz music running in the background somehow makes me feel like an artist or writer from a Netflix original. Perhaps it’s the way I romanticise the whole experience of drawing or tapping away on my laptop or scribbling in my dainty journal beside a warm drink, but this whole experience pulls me to create and essentially keep going.

Video calls and art

While I enjoy cafés, there are days when I want to stay in my joggers and fluffy socks; and let’s be honest, it won’t be the most financially smart decision for me to go to a café every time I do any piece of writing or drawing. 

Thanks to one of my closest friends, I’ve been able to find my flow state and focus on a drawing piece by staying on call with her. She’d play some soft music, and we’d occasionally dip in and out of conversations about the piece we are working on and show each other our artwork through the camera lens.

It was only once I had done this a couple of times that I realised how being on FaceTime with a friend who equally enjoys creating (be it drawing, collaging or colouring) had shifted my distractions (and excuses) on the objects around my room and forced me to hone in on the artwork in front of me. I’m very thankful for the space we hold while we create seamlessly. 

Workshops

For someone who mainly creates alone, it’s always a different feeling when I create in the same space as others - you have this warm yet anxious feeling that there’s a whole host of communities that enjoy creating and trying something new. 

This year, two workshops have stuck with me, but for different reasons. The first being an outdoor (free!) sketching session organised by the London Festival of Architecture in June. I remember it being a sunny yet windy day, which meant that the papers in my sketchbook flickered rapidly every so often, hair strands were pulling out of my braid and hovering over my eyes, and the jumper I wasn’t sure about wearing in the morning was suddenly the best idea. Perhaps it was the rapid changes in movement around me, coupled with the event organiser encouraging us to observe our surroundings and to just go for it, but I found myself producing sketches that embodied the movement around me - the lines on the page were scruffy, simple, and bold. The sketch carried a story about how the leaves in the tree swayed, how the cyclists zoomed past and how swiftly the people walked. It was this realisation that made me see how this was a sketch that I couldn’t have produced at home nor a café.

In a complete contrast to this windy environment, I found myself at a cosy, indoor paper marbling workshop with a very kind group of women, who (like me) happened to have some sort of connection to the workshop facilitator and therefore, were there to support her and/or try something new.

The process of paper marbling brought elements of calmness and adventure to mind. The exploration of adding droplets of colour and slowly moving the liquid mixture made me focus and watch the way the colours in front of me shifted. I know that this may all sound a little ambiguous - the process of paper marbling seems like it should be another blog post in itself! But what I’m getting to is that this particular workshop reminded me how trying something new forces me to stay present and slow down, as my mind navigates an unfamiliar process and outcome.

Galleries and museums

This may sound a little obvious, but visiting galleries and museums pushes me to generate ideas for my artwork. I sit there thinking about what I can bring to my artwork and occasionally find myself reflecting on ‘what kind of artist am I?’.  

Interestingly, I’ve found the experience of going alone and with friends or family quite different. When I’m alone at an exhibition, I tend to spend more time simply looking and thinking about the quietness of such places amidst the busyness of London. I often seem to transcend the loud whispers around me and hear my own thoughts. I notice fingers being pointed at certain parts of art pieces, and my eyes follow in that direction. My mind starts to feel like it’s rapidly brainstorming, as I mentally note the artwork around me, what makes people react to certain pieces and the atmosphere of the gallery itself.

As for my experience of visiting galleries with friends, each experience has been so unique. A particular experience that comes to mind is when I visited the ‘Yoshitomo Nara’ exhibition at Haywood Gallery with my friend and her parents this summer. I remember how we wandered together across the exhibition rooms, chatting about which piece we liked the most and why. We tried to guess the materials used and what we think the piece is conveying before reading the description against the wall. These questions and guesswork unintentionally brought slowness to the visit. The ambling around the exhibition, combined with the artwork around me, made me return to my original question about ‘what kind of artist am I? And now I was thinking, ‘what stories do I want to tell?’ 

Libraries & bookshops

This may sound a little unusual, but while I enjoy ambling in libraries and bookshops, reading blurbs of various books (predominantly fiction and self-help books), I often linger over the book covers. I catch myself thinking about the split second between noticing a book and deciding to pick it up. I wonder if there is anything about it I would change. The font? The colour? Well, I'm no graphic designer, but these questions running through my mind seem to ignite my creative energy. I leave the bookstore feeling fueled about journaling my thoughts, excited about my growing reading list, and sometimes...if I spot an empty desk, I stay a little while to draw.

Organising activities for my family

This year, I've spent some time doing creative activities with my family at home. So what were these activities exactly? We used mini canvases to make fridge magnets, and made felt ornaments for our Christmas tree (and pumpkin painting, if that counts!). This blog post will turn into a rabbit hole if I begin detailing the process involved in these activities. Still, I mention these in this post because the process of doing a creative activity with your close people can force you to see that creativity can be found in teaching an activity, answering questions along the way and offering solutions to all the funny mishaps.

All of this is to say: as I’ve navigated different environments and paid attention to where creativity feels most natural to me, I’ve come to understand that while a dedicated art room would be a dream, I’m already surrounded by spaces that invite me to create. These spaces are accessible, connect me with new people, and deepen my relationships with friends and family - and they still give me room to draw, paint, or write. Do you have a space you turn to when you create?