Overcome Creative Block by Stashing Inspiration in Your Sketchbook

January 21, 2026 Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

Want to overcome creative block once and for all? What if your sketchbook was a place to save inspiration rather than make finished art?

Stash Ideas Away for Later Like a Squirrel Stashes Acorns

It snowed here this week…

…and the snow made me think about winter as a season of hibernation and about how that notion shows up in my art practice.

I realized that, like a squirrel who stashes away acorns for a snowy day, I stash inspiration. My sketchbooks/studio notebooks are full of ideas. Drawings, notes, reactions, questions, things I liked, things I didn’t understand. I don’t put them there with an end goal in mind. I put them there so I can come back later when I’m ready to see them differently.

Watch the video for more:

Step One: Stash

Last summer, I visited a printmaking exhibition at the Mosesian Center for the Arts. I wandered, sketched, and scribbled notes without any particular thoughts in my mind. (THIS is the notebook I used, btw.)

My goal wasn’t to look for inspiration. I was simply paying attention and capturing anything that interested me in the moment.

Step Two: Mine Your Stash of Ideas

Months later, I opened that same sketchbook and flipping through it, I found a very simple sketch with some notes that interested me.

I made four small pieces inspired by the notations in my sketchbook…

…and then I embellished them with stitch and additional collage to really make them mine.

The goal wasn’t to make great art. The goal was to take an idea and pursue it. See where it leads.

Studio Notebook Practice to Overcome Creative Block

This is why I value a regular studio notebook practice so deeply.

For me, a sketchbook isn’t about accuracy or polish. It’s about exploration. It’s messy and layered and personal.

It holds class notes, half-formed ideas, supply tests, visual reactions, and forgotten thoughts. And when I return to it later, it often feels like receiving a gift from my past self. For instance, I can glue these house exercises into my sketchbook to stash for later inspiration. I can mount them on wood panels and hang them as art. The only thing I can’t do is throw them away. That would be a waste of my creative energy.

Stashing inspiration this way means I rarely feel stuck. I don’t need to scroll endlessly or look outward when I’m unsure what to make next. The ideas are already there, waiting for the right moment to be pulled out.

That, to me, is the quiet power of a sketchbook.

Learn More In Class

If you’re interested in going deeper, I’m teaching a five-day in-person class in April, focused on taking museum and gallery inspiration and transforming it into work that feels authentically your own.