Loosen Up!

Ways to loosen up your work:

1. Watch your grip. Don't hold your pencils or brushes too tightly or close to the end. For some people, this could also mean taking a finger off your grip.
2. Exercise your wrist. Draw and paint from the wrist, not the fingers.
3. Be prepared to throw work out.
4. Try this exercise: draw, then erase some off (at least a third). Draw again, erase again, etc. This can teach you to explore your work and not get too precious about it.
5. If a part of your artwork is not working, redo on it another piece of paper. Then, once you have it right, redo on the original (or just paste it on if that suits the work).
6. Take a break. Do something fun, come back.
7. Put on/ change/ turn up the music.
8. Try drawing or painting a step further away.
9. Give yourself a time limit to make you focus on the bigger picture. Three minutes is a good limit.
10. Stretch and jiggle.
11. Trying observing 3 steps back and come forward to make the marks.