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Thursday, August 18, 2016

8 Hobbies that Will Boost Your Creativity



Whether you consider yourself a creative or not, having a hobby that stirs your creativity can enrich your life in many ways. 

A creative hobby can help you reduce stress, express your emotions, and see the world in an entirely new way. And even if it’s a hobby you aren’t skilled at, the simple act of practicing some form of creativity regularly is going to increase your creativity. 

Here are eight hobbies that you might consider picking up if you want to invite more creativity into your life.

Photography


Photography has a way of helping you hone your “artistic eye.” As you practice composing photos and identifying good shots, you’ll begin to see the world in a more artistic way. 


You don’t have to be a photo expert to take up photography, either. With the conveniences of digital photography and high capacity memory cards, photography has truly become a no-pressure hobby that you can practice for hours on end, without draining your wallet on expenses like film and film processing. 

In addition, with dSLRs, compact system cameras, action cameras, drones, and point-and-shoot cameras, consumers have more camera options to choose from than ever before. Find a camera that you feel you can learn with and grow into, and start shooting!

Reading


Reading is a timeless hobby that just about anyone can enjoy—when they choose the right books to read, that is. And as this article points out, with nearly 130,000,000 published books to choose from, you’ll never run out of reading material. 

Reading can boost your creativity because it introduces you to other styles of writing, broadens your perspective, increases your knowledge base, and improves your vocabulary. Reading is an especially powerful tool for those looking to improve their writing.

Writing


If any two hobbies were perfect complements of one another, they would be reading and writing. Writing can boost your creativity by encouraging creative thinking and forcing you to think more deeply on the things you are writing about. 

And with social media and blogging so prevalent these days, just about anyone can find a writing platform and format that works for them.

Playing a musical instrument


Since learning to play a musical instrument engages your mental, emotional and cognitive abilities all at once, it stimulates your brain to think out of the ordinary. 

Practicing and learning to play an instrument will require patience for sure, but it will also allow you to engage in creative pursuits like covering popular songs and writing new songs.

Drawing and painting


Drawing and painting have the power to nurture your creativity by showing you color theory in action, encouraging you to come up with creative solutions, and allowing you to think out-of-the-box. 

Many people never pick up a pencil or paintbrush because they don’t consider themselves artists—and drawing and painting are so stereotypically artistic. The thing about drawing or painting, though, is that no one has to be an expert artist in order to pick up charcoal or a paintbrush and take it to canvas. 

If you’re nervous about starting, you might sign up for a local drawing or painting class that is geared toward artists of all levels—or just watch some Bob Ross.

Cooking and baking


You can also express yourself in the form of food. You might delve into a hobby of cooking or baking by first finding a cookbook or food blogger you love and trying out their recipes. 



Then, you might indulge your creative juices even further by creating some recipes of your own. A good place to start when creating your own recipes from scratch is to try to re-create your favorite dishes at your favorite restaurants.

Flower arranging


You don’t frequently see flower arranging as a hobby, but florists will definitely tell you that there is an art to creating bouquets and centerpieces. 

Flower arranging is an art that engages attention to detail, color theory, and skills in balance and composition. As an added bonus, this one hobby that is sure to beautify your home.

Blogging


Just as this article about nurturing creativity discusses, blogging is a highly versatile hobby that offers a multitude of creative outlets. 

You might use blogging to practice your writing skills, or you might use it as an excuse to go out and practice your photography skills. You can also use it to showcase artwork, to review books you’ve recently read, or to try your hand at videography. 

Whatever creative hobby you might have, blogging can help you delve deeper into that hobby and continually find inspiration.


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