Creating Your Own Creativity Hub

Creating your own creativity hub might sound a little strange. What is it and what do I need it for? We’ve all fallen down the bottomless pit of the creative block. That miserable time where creativity eludes you and you create nothing new for days, weeks, or months.

What it is, is a simple source of inspiration.

Creative block can make you feel like you crashed and burned. Having a tool like a creativity hub at your disposal can help. (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Image ID: 42219223 Copyright: ra2studio)

In a previous post, 7 Tips to Avoid Creative Block, I discussed seven practical tips to help jump start your lagging creativity, or avoid it altogether. I neglected to list this one back then, so I’m giving it its own space here.

How to Create Your Own Creativity Hub

The idea is so simple, you can start now. In a nutshell, a creativity hub is a folder you’ll create on your computer specifically for images that you love. When you’re running low on ideas for a drawing project, you can browse through your file to get those creative juices flowing.

How you create this hub is entirely up to you. If you just want to dump a mountain of images in there, that’s up to you. Personally, mine is organized by creating subject folders within my hub. For example, I have folders for animals, landscapes, cityscapes, other artists’ work, sci-fi, just to name a few.

You’re Online Anyway

Let’s face it, we’re all glued to social media each and every day. Sadly, at the end of the day, most of us couldn’t even begin to remember what we liked or commented on. Might as well make that time spent worth something rather than being a complete waste of time. I am constantly saving images. I also save other artists’ work, as I mentioned earlier. This isn’t so that I can steal their work later, but rather to use it to inspire my own work with my own spin on things. That’s what the hub is for.

Image heavy platforms like Pinterest and Instagram are great resources. You likely have followed other users who post images that you’re interested in. They faithfully post images for you, free of charge. So, there’s really no excuse.

Beware of Copyright Infringement

Now keep in mind that the creativity hub is meant to hold images for sparking your imagination. If you intend to use one as a reference image, be mindful of copyright infringement. For this purpose, there are royalty free sites like Pixabay or Pexels. Wildlife Reference Photos has fantastic wildlife photos for a very small fee. For these images, I store them in a hub folder titled “royalty free.” This way I know that I can use those images as photo-realistically as I want and not worry about copyright infringement.

The creativity hub is something you’ll be adding to regularly, possibly daily as you scroll through social media. Depending on your habits, you should have a substantial file in no time. So, the next time your creativity well runs dry, tap into the hub and feed your imagination.

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