Daily Art Prompts for Cultivating Intuitive Creativity

Do you have more ideas than time to create them? Or, do you thrive best with daily art prompts to help you cultivate the habit of daily creating?  Whichever it is for you, the physics of focus mandates progress.

Daily effort results in steady improvement and a growing body of work.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder iCreateDaily.com

Table of Contents

• Audio Article: Daily Art Prompts
  • Create and Thrive
• How to Create Daily
• The iArtDaily Intuitive Art Challenge
• Never Underestimate the Power of Community
• Art from Challenge Participants
• What is Intuitive Art?
• 30 Intuitive Art Prompts
  • The 3 Elements of Success

Your Art Matters

If you’re a creator of any kind and your goal is to build a portfolio of work or earn income from your passion, daily pursuit of your art matters.  Whether you’re writing a book, creating paintings, building a business, or blogging, creating a digital portfolio is your “degree”… your resumé and your application to opportunity.

As a creator, you don’t have to have a degree. Your body of work speaks for itself.
~Devani Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily®

Create and Thrive

Not everyone wants to build a business from their creative passion, but we all know the sense of accomplishment and joy when we make the effort to show up for what we love.  Conversely, there tends to be an inner void left when we’ve abandoned our pursuit of creative aspirations.

Daily creation matters to anyone who feels the spark of creativity inside them. Creating daily, encourages that spark to burn brighter and stronger.  Daily creating is a lifestyle of moving forward each day in the direction of your dreams.

As an artist, your portfolio is your application to opportunity.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

How to Create Daily

So what does daily creation look like? And how can you apply it to your art, life, and business? It can look different for everyone depending on goals and dreams, but the elements of daily creating are simple:

1. Create your goals: We always recommend macro and micro goals for the different areas of your life.
2. Make the time: As one popular meme states, ‘We all have the same hours in a day as Beyonce.’  Making the time, even if that means 5-10 minutes a day working on something towards your goals, is vital toward getting—and staying—in the creative flow.
   Tune into Christine McAlister talking about how important it is to dedicate 5 minutes a day to your goals.
3. Focus on your gains: Dan Sullivan coined the term “Focus on your gains, not your gaps.” The idea is not to ignore any problems you might be experiencing but to appreciate and celebrate even the smallest progress you’ve made.  Gratitude is the foundation of success.
4. Accountability & Community: These two go hand and hand.  Having a community of like-minded people who are also aspiring to do more motivates you to do more. The ability to share your goals with a community can provide the accountability needed to help you keep going, especially when you hit rough days.

There are so many more nitty-gritty tools, tricks, habits, and resources for helping achieve the creative and business success you’re looking for. But having a few foundational steps that can be implemented at any time is the best starting point.

You’re going to get clarity from taking action.
~Christine McAlister, consultant, author

The iArtDaily Intuitive Art Challenge

We hosted our first ever creativity challenge in January of 2019. It was called the iArtDaily 30 Day Intuitive Art Challenge. However, for our next one in February of 2020, we changed it to ‘Creativity Challenge‘ because many of the participants were writers and crafters as well or instead.

With the name change to Creativity Challenge we wanted to be clear that it was inclusive to all arts and even for entrepreneurs, for they are also creators and their business is their art. Since then, we also added a 30 Day Goals Challenge for entrepreneurs and creators wanting to really focus on their goals.

To succeed in the business of your art or passion, you also need to focus on the art of business.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com

Why a Creativity Challenge?

While we’ve been publishing content daily since September 5th, 2017, that wasn’t necessarily helping our community create daily themselves.

We were setting the example of growth via daily work towards our goals, but we wanted to create a way to help creators make their own progress within an encouraging and supportive community.  Thus the first iCreateDaily 30 Day Challenge was born.

Creators from calligraphists to painters, writers to photographers and a whole range of other artists, including quilters and crafters joined in.

Over the course of 30 days, we witnessed an incredible and inspiring amount of creating from beginners all the way to people who’d been doing art all their lives.  There were folks who’d abandoned art but are now getting back into it as well as aspiring poets who’ve since been inspired to also try their hand at painting.

Everything starts with a first step, and this challenge is such a step for me.
~Birgit Black Sink, artist, iCreateDaily Challenge participant

Never Underestimate the Power of Community

Community is so important to the creative journey. All participants conveyed their deep appreciation for the support and encouragement of the group of fellow creators. Being surrounded by people who are doing the very thing you want to do is often the nudge many people need.

Surround yourself with people who are doing the thing you want to do, and you will do it too.

You know that feeling after reading an incredible book, or watching a movie, or seeing an amazing performance…? Excellence and creativity inspires us to want to rise up and create, doesn’t it?

That same power can come from connecting with fellow creators sharing their work.  You grow by showing up to create daily and immersing in the creativity and positivity. Inspiration can come from anywhere, including those around you, kindred online communities and following those who are where you’re aspiring to be.

I am growing since I’m sharing art and doing more art daily.
~Jennifer Simon-Becker, artist

Art from Challenge Participants

If you’re reading or listening to this article here or on our podcast, and you were part of the challenge, thank you for making the effort of showing up for the work that matters to you.  That is a major gain that deserves to be celebrated!

We couldn’t fit all the art from the iArtDaily Challenge into this article. But below is a sampling of some of the many wonderful works from participants featuring different mediums and skill levels.

We’re THRILLED to see Sandra Malan-Bowles art progress over the past year and delighted that she will be joining us again for this February 2020 Creativity Challenge!! Here’s what Sandra said:

“I am amazed and so thankful for everything I have done since I started my first challenge in January 2019! Thank you so much!
Here is the link to my Instagram.”
~Sandra Malan-Bowles, artist, illustrator

We’d love to have you join us for the February 2020 30 Day Creativity Challenge.

We’d love to have you join us for the February 2020 30 Day Creativity Challenge.

What is Intuitive Art?

Each day for 30 days we created conceptual prompts using quotes, music, and invocative ideas.  Ideas leave more space for each creator to create according to their perception… to what comes to mind for them when reading or hearing the conceptual prompt.

Conceptual prompts are great for spark creative ideas and stimulating your connection to your inner thoughts, feelings and perceptions. Rather than each creator drawing or writing about the same object or subject, a conceptual prompt such as a quote expands the context and relevance to each individual artist.

We create art from the inside and bring it out.  While we are influenced by our environment, ultimately the creations come from within us.

That is why we created the intuitive approach. Though some find it challenging, all who stick with it show improvement and discoveries about themselves and their art.

Intuitive art prompts isn’t about telling you what to draw. Rather, it’s about sitting with an idea and seeing where it takes you and what come to life.

If you’d like to try this method, please join us for the next challenge, or you can check out the iArtDaily 30 Day Intuitive Art Journal collection.  Each of the four volumes are a mixed media paper art journal with 30 different quotes in each volume.

30 Intuitive Art Prompts

Here are all the prompts we used for the January 2019 iArtDaily 30 Day Intuitive Art Challenge.  While most of these quotes are not in our current four volume iArtDaily Journals, it will give you an example of what you can expect in conceptual art prompts. This also lets you begin play around with intuitive art now! ?

You can read an elaboration on conceptual prompts in this article.

1. Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.
~Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali, Indian polymath, poet, musician and artist, 1861-1941

2. Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail.
~Julia Cameron, American artist, author and teacher

3. A picture is a work of art, not because it is ‘modern,’ nor because it is ‘ancient,’ but because it is a sincere expression of human feeling.
~John F. Carlson, Swedish-born American Impressionist painter

4. When you face the fear it evaporates. Shadows cannot withstand the light.
~LeAura Alderson, author, podcaster, entrepreneur, co-founder-iCreateDaily

5. In creating, time disappears into space as stars blanket my shoulders in embrace, and imbue every cell of my being with love.
~LeAura Alderson,author, podcaster, entrepreneur, co-founder-iCreateDaily

6. Envision the life you want then head in that direction each day through the goals you set and the actions you take.
~LeAura Alderson, author, podcaster, entrepreneur, co-founder-iCreateDaily

7. Tune into this song from The Greatest Showman.  And see what you’re inspired to create or do.

8. Each moment is a stepping stone to the destination of your day.
~LeAura Alderson, author, podcaster, entrepreneur, co-founder-iCreateDaily

9. Here’s to freedom, cheers to art. Here’s to having an excellent adventure and may the stopping never start.
~Jason Mraz, musician

10. We’re compelled to do the work of our heart, no matter how hard to start.
~LeAura Alderson, author, podcaster, entrepreneur, co-founder-iCreateDaily

11. Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
~Teddy Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President

12. Make good use of the present and your future will be your gift.
~LeAura Alderson, iCreateDaily.com

13. Move in with the mindset of the life you want to live.
~LeAura Alderson, iCreateDaily.com

14. Listen to this song and see what you’re inspired to create!

15. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.
~Michael Jordan, American basketball player

16. I am paying more attention to what brings me joy.
~Karen Smith Krueger, Photographer

17. You are the potter of your life, shaped by choices, ‘thrown’ on the wheel of making and set in the fires of daily doing.
~LeAura Alderson, author, entrepreneur, cofounder-iCreateDaily

18. Return to yourself, before you were put upon.
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

19. “Visualization consciously sets energy in motion. When your actions match your intent, the laws of physics align and magic happens.”
~LeAura Alderson, cofounder-iCreateDaily.com®

20. You must find the place inside yourself where nothing is impossible.
~Deepak Chopra, Indian-born American author, speaker, alternative medicine

21. Tune into this video and poem, and create whatever comes to mind: This… will set an incredible tone for your creation and your day!

22. Think it and ink it.
~Thom King, CEO of iCon Foods

23. Shine the light of love upon that which would hide in the shadows of your life. Forgive. We are all humans growing into our divinity.
~LeAura Alderson, author, entrepreneur, cofounder-iCreateDaily

24. What saves a man [woman] is to take a step. And then to take another step.
~CS Lewis, British writer, professor and lay theologian, 1898-1963

25. “Normal”, doesn’t live here anymore.
~iCreateDaily.com

26. The most powerful force on earth is the human soul on fire.
~Ferdinand Foch,  French general and military theorist, 1851 – 1929

27. Grow like flowers in spring. Do the work that brings you joy, and you will spread that joy to others.
~LeAura Alderson, author, entrepreneur, cofounder-iCreateDaily

28. The artist gives form and shape… sound and texture to love.
~LeAura Alderson, iCreateDaily.com

29. I draw inspiration from the transcendence of the natural world.
~Mandy Thompson, visual artist, creator, entrepreneur

30. The grateful heart can’t but create beauty. Today, I dedicate my art to gratitude.
~LeAura Alderson, author, entrepreneur, cofounder-iCreateDaily

Challenges Help us Grow

This first art challenge inspired us so much that we’re going to keep creating different types of challenges moving forward.  If you’re interested, you can see the different challenges we have here, and feel free to sign up for the wait-list if you don’t see one coming soon.

For all kinds of drawing prompts, please check out this popular article by an iCreateDaily community member.

5 Elements of Success

1. Create daily
2. Associate with positive people, places and things
3. Believe in yourself
4. Gratitude
5. Learner’s Mind

Please join us for the February 2020, 30 Day Creativity Challenge.

Create the life you want to live, one day at a time.

The Day is the Way.

iCreateDaily!Ⓡ