One answer is to approach art making with a sense of experimentation.
Yesterday, I felt overwhelmed with ideas that I didn't know where to start. Then I realized that I needed to create an experiment that would help me to immerse myself in the process and not the result. I asked myself, "What would happen if you drew the landscape without looking at it?"
Then I did this blind contour landscape drawing exercise:
- Sit near a window
- Have colors at hand and paper in front of you
- Pick colors without looking at them - this helps to find new color combinations you might not have thought of
- Look outside your window and start moving your pencil
- Feel your paper with your hands, moving your pencil with your eyes along the landscape
- Notice the shapes, textures, and forms
- Notice how uncomfortable it feels not to look at your paper
- Practice observing
- Draw slower, moving your pencil with your eyes
- Make light marks and hard marks
- Remember how good it feels to make marks on a paper