Allow some warm-up time each day to stimulate your creative flow. A pianist does keyboard exercises. A gymnast stretches. An artist needs to loosen up, too. It takes a few minutes to shift from the real world into a creative mode.

Gather knowledge... Visit galleries, museums, art and craft fairs... Read books and magazines. Take workshops. Use your senses. Experience stimulates your memory and imagination.

Smash creative blocks. Change the problem or sneak up on it from a different direction. Try something fresh - a new way with an old theme, a different point of view, unusual tool.

Take imagination breaks... Relaxed attention is one of the most important states of mind for creativity, and sometimes it has to be learned.

You owe it to yourself to make your creative development a top priority.

Listening to music as preparation or background for your work brings you into a creative mood... choose one type of music to calm down, another to reach a higher energy level, depending on the artwork you are doing.

Choose to give your creative art priority over other things. You can do it.