Creative constraints are the secret sauce to unlocking our artistic potential, and that's exactly what we're diving into today! Join me, Timothy Kimo' Brien, as we explore how limitations can actually fuel creativity instead of stifling it. Ever find yourself overwhelmed by the endless possibilities? Well, we're flipping the script and chatting about how embracing what we lack can lead to some pretty awesome breakthroughs in our art. From experimenting with just two colors to setting time limits on our creations, we’ll share playful strategies to help you turn those pesky constraints into your best pals. So grab your metaphorical paintbrush and stick around—let’s get those creative juices flowing!

In this episode of The Create Art Podcast, we explore the surprising power of creative constraints — how setting limits can actually unlock your imagination and help you produce your best work. Whether you’re an artist, writer, musician, or creative thinker, you’ll learn how restrictions can spark innovation, focus your energy, and build momentum.

We’ll cover:

• How to use time limits to prevent overthinking.
• Why limiting tools and materials can make you more inventive.
• Ways to set theme or subject constraints to challenge your creativity.

You’ll also get practical tips and real-world examples to help you embrace limitations in your own projects.

✨ Perfect for:

Beginner and experienced artists who feel overwhelmed by too many choices or stuck in perfectionism.

1. Why Constraints Fuel Creativity

• Boundaries create focus. Too many options can be overwhelming—constraints help channel energy into action.
• History backs it up. Many famous works came from working within tight budgets, tools, or time limits.

2. Types of Constraints You Can Try

• Material limits. Use only two colors, one brush, or one instrument.
• Time limits. Set a 30-minute creation window to encourage quick decision-making.

3. How Constraints Push Skill Development

• Force you to problem-solve. You learn new ways to work with what you have.
• Promote resourcefulness. Creativity often thrives when you have to “make it work.”

4. Turning Constraints Into Challenges

• Make it playful. Treat it as a game, not a punishment.
• Join a community challenge. Prompts like Inktober or “One Week Album” provide ready-made structure.

5. Breaking the Rules

• Know when to step out. Once the constraint has served its purpose, remove it.
• Mix freedom and structure. Alternate between constraint periods and open exploration.

Creative constraints can be the best friends of artists and creators, pushing us to innovate and think outside the box. As Timothy Kimo Brien dives into this topic on today's Create Art Podcast, he emphasizes how limitations can actually fuel our creativity rather than stifle it. Picture this: you’re an artist with a blank canvas and an array of colors, but what if you only had two colors to work with? You might think it would limit your expression, but the challenge could spark new ideas, leading to a masterpiece you never imagined. Tim shares personal anecdotes, including his experiences in art classes where constraints led to unexpected and delightful results. He argues that creative boundaries, whether they be in materials, time, or technique, can help us hone our skills and develop a deeper appreciation for the process of creating.

Throughout the episode, Tim encourages artists to embrace their constraints and turn them into opportunities. He highlights historical examples, such as the construction of the Egyptian pyramids, where creativity thrived despite limited resources. He challenges listeners to find inventive ways around their limitations, whether that’s using a squeegee instead of a brush or setting a timer to create something in a rush. The underlying message is clear: constraints can lead to freedom in creative expression, allowing us to explore avenues we might never have considered otherwise. So, let’s dive into the art of constraint and discover how it can transform our artistic journeys!

Takeaways:

• Creative constraints can actually fuel our creativity by forcing us to think outside the box and improvise with what we have.
• Starting from zero is a universal experience; we all begin our artistic journeys without all the tools we want or need.
• Using only a few materials, like two colors or one brush, can lead to surprisingly innovative artistic results.
• Time limits, like setting a timer, can help develop your skills and push you to create without overthinking.
• Constraints encourage resourcefulness, making us seek alternative tools and methods that enhance our creative expression.
• Engaging with a community during creative challenges can provide support, inspiration, and a sense of camaraderie among artists.

Links referenced in this episode:

• findapodcastabout.xyz
• tkbpodcaststudio.com
• timothyreateartpodcast.com

Topics covered in this series

Sharing Your Work Online for the First Time

Dealing With Criticism and Rejection

Finding (or Building) an Artistic Community

Collaboration as a Creative Catalyst

Staying Motivated Long-Term

Art Challenges & Social Media Trends

Mental Health & Creativity

Art Challenges & Social Media Trends

Setting Up a Creative Workspace

Creative Constraints & Prompts

Measuring Growth as an Artist

Why Do You Create?

When to Call Yourself an Artist

Lessons From a Year of Creating

Setting Creative Goals Without Killing the Joy

How do I get such great guests?

PodMatch I use Podmatch to get the best guests on the show. Check out PodMatch if you want to guest on other podcasts or if you have a podcast and need guests for your show. Guests from Podmatch

Make Sharing your podcast easier

Use Podcast Beacon for the best NFS products to share your podcast while out and about or at conferences.

Reach Out To The Podcast

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

• Email: timothy@createartpodcast.com
• YouTube Channel: Create Art Podcast YT Channel
• IG: @createartpodcast
• Twitter: @createartpod

Create Art Podcast Newsletter

timothybrien.substack.com

Special Message

If you have found value in this podcast, please share it with a friend as that is the best way to discover new podcasts. I want this to be a 5-star podcast in your eyes so let me know what you would like to see.

Speaking about sharing with a friend, check out my other podcast Find A Podcast About where I help you outsmart the algorithm and find your next binge-worthy podcast. You can find that podcast at findapodcastabout.xyz.

For all of my projects check out my portfolio website TKBPodcaststudio.com where I help my clients through quiet professionalism lead through the noise.

Special Ask

Let me know what you think about the podcast by taking a survey. 2024 Listener Survey yes it is 2025, but hey I am late to the game on this. Thank you ahead of time to help me make this more of what you are wanting to hear.

Hey there, friend.

So this is going to seem counterintuitive, but because we're.

You and I are creatives and artists and all that good stuff, and we want to have the whole world at our feet and all the tools and all that kind of stuff, but you and I live in the real world.

What happens when we don't have all the stuff that we want or that we think we need?

Because there's a difference between need and want.

So that's what we're going to talk about today on Create Art Podcast.

We're going to talk about using those creative constraints to making our art better.

Stick around.

Hey there.

This is Timothy Keem o', Brien, your head instigator for Create Art Podcast, where I bring my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame more than your.

To help you tame your critic and create more than you consume.

I only have so much time to do this.

That is a creative constraint, and that's what we're going to be talking about here on today's episode.

Now, I've started a new series because you all know that I like doing series, and this is the new Artist Compass series.

So I'm going to be having conversations with other artists.

Not interviews, but conversations with other artists, and doing solo episodes like this, where I'm gonna be tackling a lot of these topics that new artists think about.

And creative constraints is definitely something that we all need to think about, because we don't start with a full palette with all these great brushes and these fantastic canvases.

We start at zero.

It's kind of like when we come out of the womb and we start at zero.

We're raw and naked and there's bright lights and people smacking our butts.

That's where we start off with.

We all start off with the same way.

The same way.

Just like with a podcast, you start off with zero listeners, zero downloads.

And then you build something and build something, and you learn better ways, and you learn to live within your means.

So let's get talking about this subject of creative constraints.

So why do creative constraints really matter?

I mean, you know, we're artists.

We want to do everything.

We want the world to be our oyster.

But why do we need constraints?

Well, I think it's important because they do fuel creativity.

You know, the boundaries that we impose on ourselves or that we have others impose on us create a certain type of focus.

Let me give you an example.

So one of my favorite TV sitcoms is MASH, and it was a sitcom in the 70s and early 80s.

And my favorite character, it was all about this army unit in the Korean War, and they're a medical unit, a lot of crazy hijinks ensues.

But my favorite character from there was Radar.

Now, he was the company clerk.

And the reason why he was my favorite is he thought up all kinds of ways to help out the doctors.

Now, he wasn't a doctor himself.

As a matter of fact, he probably fainted the sight of blood.

And he drank grape knee high.

And he was a nerdy kind of guy, but he found that with lack of supplies, lack of support, he was able to actually run this mobile hospital under two different commanders who had two different command styles.

And he was able to thrive and, you know, flourish under those.

So.

Whereas he was probably the most important person on that base.

So when we have too many options, when we have everything given to us, and this is going to sound like old man Tim here, but if we're given everything and we can do anything, wave our magic wands, we don't want to appreciate what we have, and we don't learn to go around these boundaries.

We don't learn to expand ourself beyond whatever boundary that we have.

So finding creative ways around it.

If we're not, if we don't have something, then we improvise with something else.

And maybe that new tool is the tool that we really love and we're going to use forever and we become the master of that new tool that we either invented or we repurposed.

Now, history backs us up on this.

You know, there's a lot of famous works that came out from working with, like in tight budgets, tools or time limits.

Let's look at the, the, the Egyptian pyramids.

We probably can't recreate those in the same way, shape or style, but they had none of the stuff that we have.

Now.

They don't have a.

They didn't have AI as far as we know.

Now there's some, you know, conspiracy theories that thinks that aliens did that.

Well, let's look at Easter Island.

Let's look at Stonehenge.

You know, those folks were limited with what they could do with the tools that they had, the supplies that they had, the knowledge that they had, but look what they created.

Now, I'm not telling you that you're going to create the next Stonehenge or Easter island statues or the next Egyptian pyramids, but if you don't have everything that you need, I'm going to challenge you to find ways around that.

Repurpose Something else.

Or invent whatever tool that you need in whatever artistic practice that you're involved with.

Because when we do that, we develop a really good appreciation for our talents and for our ingenuity.

And adding that ingenuity to creativity is just going to make something so much better.

All right, so right now you're probably thinking, okay, Tim, okay, I'm going to.

I'm going to try this constraint theory, you know, to fuel my creativity.

But what constraints can I try?

Well, here's another oxymoron, I guess.

Or something else.

There are a ton that you can try out there.

I'm just going to give you a couple of examples here.

So let's say your work deals with materials, right?

Let's say you're a painter.

So why don't you try to do a painting with just two colors?

Maybe it's a gray and blue or a green and yellow.

Just use two different colors.

Different shades in those colors.

That's where the creativity comes in.

Because I'm just saying two colors, you can.

You can immediately jump to.

Well, he didn't say I couldn't use different shades of those colors, did he?

No.

How about just using one brush?

Or here's something that.

That we can bring right to the forefront.

Bob Ross.

And I love Bob Ross.

Okay?

I've seen him do paintings just with a palette knife.

Just with a palette knife.

No brush.

Just using a palette knife to do it.

You know, I've seen YouTube videos of people using combs, just combs with hair.

Now, of course, I don't have that much hair, so I don't know what a comb is, but just using combs and acrylic paint just to do these wonderful abstract paintings.

Or maybe you just go, you know what?

I love abstract painting, but I'm going to do.

I'm going to do a portrait in a conventional and conventional style.

There you go.

There's your constraint right there.

Challenge yourself to do that, because you might find that it works out really good.

Another thing that you could do is time limits.

So why don't you get started on something and set a timer.

You know, do an egg timer or do a timer on your phone and set it for 30 minutes.

You have 30 minutes to create something.

Go.

And then when that timer dings, you stop.

No matter where you're at, you stop.

Something that I did in college, I took a drawing class.

I'm a theater guy, but I'm also a designer and, you know, sketch drawing class.

I was like, and let's give it a Shot should be fun.

And I've told this story before about the instructor that was there.

He was from the UK and he loved techno music.

So what he would do is he would set up a, a scene.

One of the best ones I really loved is he set up all these chairs and then put a tarp over it and said, draw that.

So we're all sitting in our spots in different areas around the room.

And he had a timer.

So every like two minutes, timer would go off.

All right, switch.

And we would go to the person next to us, we'd go to theirs and add to whatever drawing they had.

And we would do this until everyone had been to everyone's station and took the whole class hour.

And then we, we showed people, you know, we showed our work there.

And some of it was fantastic, some of it looked like mud.

But getting that different perspective, you know, sitting in the same seat as somebody else but getting that different perspective on whatever it is you're trying to create, some of the stuff came out to be just wonderful, just mind boggling ly wonderful.

And the goal of that was to teach us, you know, hey, you know, different perspectives.

But also it was a great way to add in a constraint.

You got 30 seconds to do it from your view.

Go.

All right, so we've talked about constraints are good for your creativity.

Some types you can try for yourself.

But how does it work?

I mean really, how does it work?

Well, the first idea is that it's going to force you to problem solve.

So you don't have the world's greatest brush.

Do you need it?

Can you use like a squeegee?

Something I've recently seen online is somebody taking a couple of drops of acrylic paint and then just taking a squeegee and just moving it around or, you know, taking.

Somebody doesn't know really how to draw a.

This is one of my kids favorites.

Let's say you didn't really know how to draw a.

A woman standing in the rain with an umbrella.

So what I saw this person do is.

And I don't know if they can't draw it or not, but what I saw this person do is tape up a, a canvas and then have, you know, some sort of overlay on that and then cut out the overlay of a woman using an umbrella kind of in a rainstorm.

And what they did is they cut that out and then they just, you know, went all over the place with a bunch of different colors.

And once they took the tape off of the canvas, what you Saw there is a bunch of white space around the woman with an umbrella in kind of a rain storm area.

But all the colors were just all over the place.

And they were.

It was fantastic to view it and to.

And to see it done.

So that's a way for you to problem solve.

Another thing that pushes your skill development is it promotes resourcefulness.

So, again, you don't have the world's greatest brush.

Well, what do you have that you can use?

And again, that's where that ingenuity comes into it.

That's the problem solving that is.

You know, or maybe you do have a great brush, but you're tired of using it.

You want to use something else.

All right, well, then you go find something else to use, like a palette knife or a comb or Q tips.

I've seen this happen before, is, you know, you want to put some splatter and dots on your.

On your painting that you've already done, just, you know, dipping some Q tips in there and then just kind of flicking or a toothbrush kind of flicking it around.

Why not?

You know, you have it.

Everyone's got it.

Well, not everyone, but most people have a toothbrush laying around the house that they're not using.

You could use that to paint your next masterpiece.

So, you know, just think about that.

It really.

You don't have to use the standard tools for whatever art you're in.

You can always find something else to make art, and then the challenge is to make it as good or if not better than somebody that's using it with standard tools.

Besides, who wants to be standard?

I mean, you're a creative, I'm a creative.

I'm not standard.

I am not even on the chart, and I don't want to be on the chart.

So give that a shot for yourself.

So let's take these constraints that we're going to use to help us with our creativity, with our problem solving, with our ingenuity, and let's turn them into challenges.

First things first.

Not a punishment.

I'm not smacking you on the hand and going, okay, you can only use 15 letters in this next poem you're gonna write.

I'm not trying to make it a punishment for you.

What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to help you with your inspiration, that elusive muse, inspiration.

Make it fun for yourself.

You know, just make whatever the challenge is that you're gonna give yourself, whatever constraint you're gonna give yourself, maybe you're just painting with your left hand instead of your right hand.

If you're righty.

Or swap it up.

Maybe you're used to playing a instrument in the bass clef, and now you want to switch that and work in the treble clef.

And so you switch up an instrument and do it like that, whatever it is, make it fun.

Now, you can do that on your own, and that's perfectly fine.

But what I find is really good is when it's a community challenge, when other people are doing the challenge right alongside you.

So that way you can share your horror stories, share your successes, ask questions, and find out what other people are doing and maybe get some help with it, maybe master your craft even more.

So definitely make it fun and do it with other people.

Because a lot of times, us artists, we like to, you know, just do everything on our own and all that kind of good stuff.

But, you know, there's a community of us out there.

You're watching this video or you're listening to this podcast.

You're part of my community, and I'm part of your community now.

So do that challenge.

Do it in public.

Sometimes we just got to pull our pants down and dance a jig in the town square.

That's what we got to do.

So he's showing our warts and all.

So I'm going to challenge you to find something that's fun and find something that's out there, that's in the community, that's already being done, that you can participate in.

All right.

We've found our fun challenge, and, you know, we're buying into this whole idea of these constraints.

These challenges are going to enhance our creativity, which they will.

Now, I'm going to ask you to be your most artistic self here, to be your biggest rebel and break the rules.

Just absolutely break them.

So one thing that I do is I do national poetry months in April.

And what that is, it's.

They give you 30 prompts in 30 days, and you write 30 poems.

A lot of times the prompts are really cool, and there's, you know, thousands and thousands of people doing it across the United States, and they participate and they share their poems, and it's to, you know, I promote poetry.

Well, sometimes I'll follow the prompt.

Other times I'll find a different prompt to do.

Or if the prompt is a really a.

A piece that, you know, you can only do, you know, 13 lines.

Well, I'll think to myself, okay, so I can only have 13 lines in here.

How am I going to count?

A line is a line.

One thought 13 times, you know, that I Can break up or, you know, let's say the piece is supposed to be about flowers.

Does it have to be flowers that are based on Earth flowers?

Could be Saturn flowers.

Who knows?

A Saturn has flowers, and I challenge you, go to Saturn, find out if it has flowers.

If you don't, if you don't think it does, then burden of proof is on you, because I say Saturn has flowers.

So know when to break out of that.

Find ways to look at those walls that we constrain ourselves in and find ways around them.

Sometimes you stick a thing of C4 on the wall and blow it up.

Sometimes you go over the wall, build a ladder, go over the wall, dig a hole, go underneath the wall, run as far as you can down one direction, see if there's a door at the end of that wall, but find ways around that wall that's going to be fun for you, and then mix those constraints with the freedom that they actually provide you because they're giving you.

They're putting you in a box, let's say.

So how can we decorate that box?

How can we, you know, make that boring, drab box something that's wonderful?

Maybe it's wonderful on the inside and people can only view it a certain way.

Perfect.

You've got the lesson.

You understand what to do.

So find ways that you can follow the rules or follow the constraints per se, and then find ways to break out of those constraints where you can show the structure and then how you exploded out of the structure.

You can do that with just about anything.

And, oh, gosh, there's your inspiration right there.

So that elusive muse, that elusive inspiration that I used to buy into and think, you know, well, you know, I'm not inspired yet.

The muse hasn't hit me yet.

Yet there it is right there.

It's, you know, tapping you on the forehead, going, hey, I'm right here.

Do it.

Make it happen.

Give that a shot for yourself.

All right.

Well, I hope you got something out of today's episode.

I know I certainly did.

I'm challenging myself and looking at different kinds of constraints.

One of the constraints, obviously, is doing a YouTube channel and knowing, you know, playing around with it and seeing what I can do with it.

I want to know what's going on with you.

You can email me timothyreateartpodcast.com if you want to join in these conversations about all the topics I'll be talking about in this series.

Email me, let me know what you would like to do.

If you check the show notes, you can see a list of the topics I will be covering.

So do that for yourself if you want to be part of this.

If you have some critiques on the show, want to hear about it?

You know, should I do more of this?

Less of this, more guests, less guests?

Should I just shut up and, you know, have AI do my voice?

Whatever the critique is, I'm big guy, I can take it.

So let me know what you're thinking about the show.

Now I do, you know, want you to go ahead and share the show as well.

So, you know, if you're watching on YouTube, you know, share, you know, hit the like button and make sure that you're subscribed to the channel.

If you're listening onto a podcast, your podcast app, whichever one you're using, usually has a share function on it.

So go ahead and hit that share function.

Share it with a friend that is an artist, they claim to be an artist or they're just thinking about being an artist.

Share this episode with them.

Share all my episodes with them.

And you know, that's a nice gift that you can give somebody.

I want to talk about a couple of things here.

My other podcast is find a podcast about.

You can find that@findapodcast about.xyz.

and that's where I help you find your next binge worthy podcast and outsmart the algorithm.

Check it out.

It's been on a little bit of a hiatus recently, but it's coming back.

And then I started up my own business, TKB Podcast Studio.

You can find it at tkbpodcaststudio.com and that's where I help you lead through the noise with quiet professionalism and get your podcast idea.

All the way from idea to production and publishing.

I help you out with that.

So if you're interested in doing something like that, give it a look.

See?

All right, that's all I have for you here today.

I want to thank you for joining me, spending some time with me and in our constrained time thing here, you know, a lot of people say that, you know, we have attention spans of goldfish going on here and that's a constraint too.

So I want to thank you for taking time out of your day, whatever constraints that you have there, and talking here with me about using creative constraints to really embolden, inspire and really just enlarge your creativity.

So go out there, tame that inner critic, create more than you consume, find ways to constrain yourself and then find ways around them or over them or through them, or build up a transporter and transport yourself to the other side of the wall.

I can't wait to hear what you've done.

Now go make some art for somebody you love.

Yourself.

I'll talk to you next time, Sam.