Does the Fish Theory actually help with artist block?

Introduction

In a lot of social media outlets, like Instagram, you may encounter some videos of artists drawing fishes. While you may be confused at first, there is a popular opinion circulating around in social media that drawing fishes helps cure artist block. While the idea of drawing fishes cures something is rather far reaching, the idea of the theory does not sound far too off in tackling art block. The real question then lies: does drawing fishes actually help?

What is The Fish Theory?

The fish theory is a theory to combat artist block. The theory is that drawing fishes will help artists with art block since it requires very little effort to plan and sketch while, simultaneously, allowing for creativity to flow. While the theory suggests that drawing fishes will cure artist block, the question lies if it’s actually true or not. As such, we have to define what an artist blocks. Artist block is temporary inability for an artist to create art, or lack thereof. There are different factors that contribute to artist block. One example would be burnout, which comes from over working yourself to mental and physical exhaustion. Another example would be psychological, where you simply do not feel the urge to create art, or think about creating art. Another factor would be stress, where forcing yourself to create art strains creative freedom. 

There are different ways that many artists struggle and overcome artist block. One of the tips that artists say is that artist block is mainly burnout. Artists suffer from burnout, which results in the lack of motivation to create new pieces. One of the tips that they say is to realize that the reason why we burnout is due to fear of not creating art, which creates this cycle of fear. Fear is a natural thing, they said, so you have to accept that you are not going to create pieces. The other tip revolving around artist block is to stop doing art altogether. Anne Buckwalter states that she overcomes art block by shuffling a pair of cards. Dustin Yellin states that he would travel to distant places before creating art. Li Hei Di would read poems and stay with family members. Everyone deals with art blocks, and everyone deals with art blocks differently. And that is the case with the fish theory.

The fish theory is simply a tip for creatives to achieve a small artwork that requires little to no work whatsoever. In my personal experiences, drawing fishes made drawing fun. It made it fun because I was drawing fish for the sake of my amusement, rather than drawing for the sake of creating something. Does the fish theory work for me? No. Personally, what cures art block is to not do art at all, and simply do something else from art. Despite the fish theory not working on me, it definitely appears to help many creatives in the online sphere of social media in dealing with art blocks. That, in itself, is the beauty in creating art. As such, does drawing fishes help art blocks? Yes, it can!

Head picture from Slices of Blue Sky