The Art of the Pause: Why Stepping Away Might Be the Best Thing for Your Creativity
Hey everyone, welcome back to the studio!
If you’ve noticed things have been a little quiet around here over the last few months, you’re not imagining it. I took a massive break from painting between December and April. For nearly five months, the studio doors were shut, the canvas racks stayed empty, and the blowtorches and mixing cups gathered a bit of dust.
The Divide
If I’m being completely honest, the break started out of pure practicality. My studio has pretty limited heating, and trying to get acrylic paint to behave, flow, and dry properly in the dead of a British winter is an absolute nightmare. But beyond the freezing temperatures, life simply did what life does—it got in the way.
As many of you know, day-to-day life for me involves navigating a lot of moving parts, including caring for my daughter who has complex physical and mental health disabilities. Some seasons just require every ounce of your time, energy, and head space. When those seasons hit, standing at a canvas and trying to force a creative spark when you're running on empty just doesn't work. So, I stepped away.
The Unexpected Magic of Doing Absolutely Nothing
At first, I felt that familiar, nagging sense of guilt that we all get when we put a passion project on the back burner. I worried that my hands would get stiff, that I’d forget my favorite pouring recipes, or that I’d lose whatever momentum I had built up.
But when April finally rolled around, the weather warmed up, and although life remains fairly chaotic, I walked back into the studio, picked up the cups, and poured my first canvas in months.
And honestly? I was completely blown away.
I didn't just come back feeling refreshed—I came back vastly improved. It was the strangest, most wonderful feeling. My cells were cleaner, my compositions felt more intentional, and my colour placement just clicked. It was almost as though the break had given my brain the quiet opportunity to subconsciously sort through, process, and consolidate everything I had learned over the last few years.
Solar Flare
Processing on the Back Burner
When we are constantly creating, we don't always give our minds the time to catch up with our skills. We're so focused on the next pour, the next palette, or fixing the last mistake that we don't let the lessons sink in.
Stepping away for those few months stripped away all the pressure. It took away the overthinking. By the time I picked up a pouring cup again, my intuition had completely taken over. I wasn't fighting the paint anymore; I just knew what it needed. It turns out that rest isn't the enemy of creativity at all—it's actually the fuel.
Back at the Canvas (With Some Fresh Work!)
So, if you’ve been feeling stuck, exhausted, or like you're constantly fighting your own creative process, this is your gentle reminder that it is entirely okay to put things down for a while. Life happens. The cold weather happens. Burnout happens. Trust that your art will be right there waiting for you when you're ready, and you might just surprise yourself by how much you've grown while you were away.
I am so incredibly happy to be back in the studio, surrounded by messy paint cups and, yes, probably a lot of blue palettes (some habits are hard to break!). I’ve been working on a ton of fresh pieces that I can't wait to share with you all over the coming weeks.
Have you ever taken a long break from a hobby or passion and come back to find you were better than when you left? Let me know in the comments—I’d love to hear your experiences!
Until next time…….
Enjoy the flow,
