Choosing a gift for an artist can be very challenging. Here are a few suggestions that may impress any artist on your list. I want to give you some essentials to help any artist master their craft. There are thousands of books available, and these ones are the top of the list.

Another idea for gift giving to your favorite artist is our gift package. It's a chance for the artist to get online without annual membership fees. It's your opportunity to be a patron and show your confidence and pride, giving a leg up just when its needed most.

If you are stuck in your old way of thinking, your creativity is blocked, and you just can’t seem to think beyond the scope of your experience, you may just need a little help thinking creatively. 

The Brain Has A Gate Keeper

The best method I’ve found for shutting down the gate keeper and allowing your creativity to flourish is sketching.

It’s guaranteed to work to solve any problem I am trying to solve. Not just the visual ones, or ones that concern the painting I’m working on, but any problem that I’m trying to solve. My sketches often have notes in the form of single words or phrases written on the same page. Unrelated thoughts or ideas that materialize as I sketch. Evidence of the process at work. 

Sketching is especially good because of it’s immediacy. I carry a small unlined note book or a sketch book with me at all times. Always at hand, and easy to reach, I would never think of packing for a trip without including my sketch bag in my carry on when I travel. It’s contains graphite pencils, eraser, sketch book, watercolor pencils, ink pencils and a brush with water in the handle.

If you are not an artist, and feel uncomfortable picking up a sketch book for fear of the gate keeper standing over your shoulder, try instead to draw the alphabet. Start with the letter ‘A’ and work your way to the end. Do capital letters and small letters, write in your own handwriting, then print, then try different looks and styles and flourishes. Try different words, and try your signature. Any lined notebook will do. No need for a sketch book, a special calligraphy book, special pens or pencils. Anything at hand will work. Draw the letters, the words, your signature.

Cut out words from magazines in different font styles and put them in your notebook, and practice drawing them. It keeps you from just making the letters the way you usually would, it focuses you on drawing the letters the way you see them, not the way you think you see them. 

Turning your sample styles of lettering upside down will completely free your mind, and remove your preconceived notions of what that letter is supposed to look like. It will focus you mind, and shut down the gate keeper, allowing you to think creatively. 

On the surface it may look like you are creating a drawing, but in reality, you are working on another project or idea. This is the Chameleon working it’s magic.

The illustration is an example of the results of shutting down the gate keeper.

I was commissioned to create an illustration for an advertisement for a small community museum.  The building itself is a museum piece, and they wanted only a painting of it for the ad. 

The ad was about getting people into the museum, not just the building. I wanted to convey that by putting people going up the steps and through the door, but there was still something missing. 

Since the painting had to show the outside of the building, my personal challenge was to show why they should go in. I didn’t want to do the cliche of putting pictures of artifacts like a frame around the image. So I added the ancestors. The ones who once owned the possessions the viewers were going to see. My client was very happy with the result. When I showed the curator she said “I thought we were just going to get a boring picture of the building. I didn’t expect this. It’s fantastic” 

An introduction to possibilities 
There is a video circulating online, produced by an airline company. It is a Christmas holiday promotion with deeper meaning.  

The company set up an almost life size video screen at the passenger terminal, at their check-in area. The customers were asked to scan their tickets which then activated a Santa, who asked one question. “What do you want for Christmas?” Everyone booked on the flight was asked; children, parents and grandparents. The answers were as varied as the people. A toy train, a ticket home for Christmas, socks and underwear and a large screen TV. Everyone laughed and had a nice time while they waited to board their flight. 

What these people didn’t know was that the airline had a huge staff in the destination city that was out purchasing these gifts. After arrival, the passengers waited patiently in the baggage claim area. When the carousel started to turn, instead of their luggage, out came the gifts. Every passenger got exactly what they asked for, including the large screen TV. 

I have to tell you, the expression on the guys face who had asked for socks and underwear, was priceless. You could see his disbelief and frustration. He was kicking himself for not asking for what he really wanted. He was limited by his imagination and his belief system. He asked for what he knew he needed and what he thought he would get, but he never asked for what he wanted. The little boy didn’t have any trouble asking for the train he wanted. He didn’t limit himself. That’s what he wanted, so he asked. He was delighted when his package arrived. As you can well imagine, so were the people who asked for the large screen TV and the woman who asked for a ticket home for the holidays. Tears of joy filled the eyes of some, accompanied by huge smiles from all. 

What would you have asked for? 
I would ask for a the new 15” Mac Book pro and Creative Suite software. I can almost hear my mothers voice saying something like, “That’s never going to happen” or “Be realistic” or “Do you really think you deserve that?”  

This is what most of us are taught. Lower your expectations, so you aren’t disappointed. We are taught to be ‘realistic’ and ‘you only get the reward you deserve’. We are taught to under value our worth. We are taught not to be greedy or selfish. We are taught our dreams are worthless.

With good intentions, teachers and parents taught us to keep our feet firmly planted on the ground. This is inherited through generations. They were taught it, as their parents were before them and passed it on to us, but they are wrong. We all deserve every bit of happiness and rewards that there are. We just have to believe it, focus on it and it will happen. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day, but it will happen. 
Believing this was a constant struggle for me and sometimes I fell into the trap, feeling hopeless. I was stuck, frozen in place, held back by beliefs from others, like most of us are. 
I learned how to break free from the ice pack and express what I wanted. When I did, I felt joy and excitement. I believed I could make it work, no matter the odds. I’ve done it time and time again and will continue to do so. I just have to hold on to that feeling. 
I didn’t expect anyone to ‘get it’ for me. I didn’t know how I would ‘get it’. I would ask because that’s what I wanted. It’s not “what I think I can get, it’s what I want.” I firmly believed that I deserved it, just as much as anyone else. We are all children of the same universe.

If I spoke my dream out loud to a friend, they would ask “How are you going to do that?” Sometimes I would have a plan, but usually I didn’t. I would simply answer “I don’t know, but I’m going to do it anyway.” I knew it would happen because I was excited. 

The people in the video didn’t know they were going to get what they asked for, but they asked. So now the question is, are you going to ask for socks and underwear or a large screen TV?  Are you brave enough to speak your truth without limitations and ask for what you want?

What will you do with your next painting, short story, video or business idea?  Will you limit what you do or offer because you don’t know how your going to achieve it?  Are you afraid to ask because you don’t want to be disappointed if it doesn’t show up? 

Perhaps you don’t know how to ask. Do you know what you really want?  A surprising number of us have no clue about what we want, but are very clear on what we don’t want. 

What do you really want? Way down deep, the secret you dare not speak. It’s time to give it a voice.

I’m not saying this is all going to happen right away. Your not going to open the door and find a red pony standing there. It doesn’t work like that, but it can happen. So start dreaming now.

Start a dream list. Don’t limit your imagination or worry about how you are going to get it. Imagine that you are holding a book with everything that you could ever possibly want, in it. Every page has something new and exciting. Some things make your heart beat faster, and you get excited. Write it down. Other things give you absolute joy when you think of them, write them down. Go into your deepest desires, the ones you have had forever, but have put aside because you didn’t think you could get them. Write them down. It could be developing a new skill or style of painting. It could be the house of your dreams. Write it down, describe it in detail. 

If you are a fan of a certain artist, look at her work and ask what you are attracted to. Is it the subject, the style, the technique? How does your work compare?  How can you incorporate the things you love about this artists work, into yours?  If you are a writer, musician or someone who wants to start their own business, do the same thing. Figure out what you admire, what you want to achieve, what gets you excited.  Then write it down because this is what you really want. 

Begin your journey today.

And for now at least, keep it your secret if you think you might appear selfish, greedy or foolish. This will help you be honest with yourself. Truth sets you free and truth heals, so start listening to your truth first.

But more about that later.