I'm beginning to think that the creative part of my brain is dead. Maybe I need to do more activities to jumpstart my imagination... or maybe I need to spend less time in front of my computer... I need to draw and sketch and write more.

I remember years ago, when I first decided to be an artist and make moves to support myself with my art. It's here that I see where I went wrong as an artist. Whenever I decided to create a piece digitally, no analog work went into it. My work was either on the computer or off the computer... there was no overlap or crossover. Here is where I went wrong.

When you create a work in the digital medium, there must be a large degree of conceptual work which goes into it before you ever touch the keyboard or mouse or wacom. Otherwise, whatever you do will be limited by what the computer can do. Ypu become a filter whore. The imagination of an artist is incredibly larger than any list of filters or effects can contain.

If you don't think about what you're gonna do before you do it, you'll find yourself only doing what the filters and effects allow you. Turn off your computer and think, sketch and conceptualize. Decide what you want to do. Stretch your creative haunches... you'll find that the things you can come up with are infinitely better than before. And if the program won't do what you want it to do. Turn the computer back off and find another way.

Let's become artists, not button pushing monkeys.