Creative constraints lead to better ideas

 “Art lives on constraint and dies of freedom” – Michelangelo 

I know, constraints and restrictions might seem like the last thing you want when undertaking a creative project. Creativity is seen as this ‘out-of-the-box’ way of doing things, with the freedom to create anything your imagination can conjure. But I think this is a mistake. Creativity actually thrives when given a few restrictions. The constraint is the launching pad for ideas.

An example of this that gets used a lot is the Apollo 13 mission. They were 320,000km from earth when an explosion on board took out the lights, electricity, oxygen and water on board. The engineers at Houston had less that 48 hours to find a solution or the astronauts would all die. They had huge constraints, as they had to design a product to fix the problem using materials that were on board the space craft – low-tech materials such as cardboard, plastic bags and good ol’ duct tape. This was a matter of thinking inside the box and finding a solution within the constraints. Nothing like a time limit and a strict set of materials to get the creative juices flowing!

I think artists have always know the value of restrictions. Picasso painted a whole series of blue paintings. The Beatles wrote 21 songs using only A, D and E chords. Dr Seuss wrote ‘Green Eggs and Ham’ on a bet that he couldn’t write a book using less than 50 words.

I see proof of this idea in my classroom. Give students some choice with a few constraints and they will generally produce something that is original and that they are happy with. I also see the opposite happen. Students often plead to do a ‘free-choice’ project, but I have avoided allowing this in recent years because the results are so often underwhelming. When truly given the freedom to create anything they want using any material, students spend far too much time ‘thinking’ of an idea. They have no direction, no starting point and usually end up plagiarizing something they see on the internet rather than working up their own idea. All because they didn’t have some constraints to launch from.

I myself experience this too – a blank page and infinite possibility is the quickest way to find creative block. Once committed to a few things – maybe the material or the subject matter, creative thinking gets easier. I’m nearly to the end of Inktober and I’m really pleased with my decision to restrict myself to drawing fish for the whole month. Using this in partnership with the given prompts meant that I had a very clear starting point but also had the challenge of relating everything to fish. Some of these were difficult, like the Thunder, Scorched and Breakable days, but these turned out to be some of my favorite drawings. Never in a million years would I have drawn those if something had just asked me to draw anything I liked. Now I’ve got a lovely little series of cartoon fish drawings, although I am looking forward to moving on to something else – but I don’t know what that is yet!

I urge you to try it. Restrictions might include setting a timer, a word limit, using one material or one colour or using only 3 notes or chords to write a song. You might be surprised at the results.

If you have some other ideas for constraints let me know in the comments below.

Until next time,

Erin