Ever feel like you missed the boat on your chance to be an artist?
You’re not alone. After all, responsibilities tend to get in the way of our creative aspirations over time. Between our careers, families and day-to-day stresses related to keeping up with it all, it’s not uncommon to feel creatively discouraged and wonder what could have been.
However, it’s arguably easier than ever to pick up a creative hobby from the comfort of your home. This is especially true given the number of free tools and online communities out there to support aspiring artists.
Whether you’re looking for personal fulfillment or a more productive use of your time, a creative hobby can most certainly do the trick. Easing yourself into such a happy is probably less of a hassle than you might think, too. Consider the following four avenues that allow you to harness your creativity from home.
Composing and Musicianship
It’s never too late to give up on your musical aspirations. For pop stars, rock stars and everyone in between, composing music on your own time is an absolute breeze nowadays with so many digital tools and guides for beginners.
For example, you can download a digital audio workstation (DAW) such as Reaper for absolutely free, allowing you to record, edit and publish your own audio files in a matter of minutes. With the help of samples and loops from sites like Cymatics.fm, you have the early makings of an awesome hope studio that sounds professional and leaves you plenty of room for experimentation.
Despite popular belief, you need little more than a laptop to get starting with composing these days.
Digital Art
Given the rise of touch screens, learning to draw digitally makes the process of becoming an artist much less daunting for newbies. Whether through a Wacom tablet or your personal iPad, just about anyone can learn to draw with the help of endless YouTube tutorials and projected geared toward beginners.
The best parts about learning to draw digitally, though? Room for creativity and error. Versus traditional painting, undoing your mistakes is just a click away; furthermore, you can play around with just about any color palette or art style you want without being restricted by traditional materials.
Video Editing
With the explosion of YouTube and video content as a whole, there are seemingly endless opportunities for those looking to get started with film editing. Anything from cooking tutorials to home improvement projects and beyond are totally fair game. If there’s something you already do in your spare time that you can teach the masses, you’re already game to become a vlogger yourself.
You don’t need pricey equipment to get started with video editing, either. Smartphone cameras are the bread and butter of most of the vlogosphere; meanwhile, finding the right video editing software doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, either.
Writing
If you’ve been sleeping on an idea for a brilliant novel or story, there’s no better time than now to get started. After all, many great artists didn’t come up with their best pieces of fiction until they were a bit older, anyhow.
Participating in National Novel Writing Month and other sorts of creative competitions can be the perfect catalyst for getting started with your story. When you set deadlines for yourself and free-write, you’d be surprised at just how much you can get on paper.
Don’t let your creative aspirations totally pass you by. Instead, examine which creative avenue makes the most sense for your skill set and situation to start making your artistic dreams a reality.
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