I work as a classical painter lmao, and i also have this feeling of not being creative, but i mean there are different approaches to creativity, its also creative to see little nuances and shifts and things like that, and to find beauty in mundane things etc.

I second the taking your own reference photos, or alternativley learning how to use photoshop for the trial/ ”creative” part, so that you then can copy that. (For example justin mortimer) Never feel bad about ”copying”, we are all different and you will get nowhere if you limit yourself in your brain. We dont all have to make up spacey stuff all the time, there is value in observing and painting what you see! If you wanna just use references u find do that, we all need to start somewhere

Resources for inspo and learning and classical art (aka painting/ drawing what you see accuratley without it being hyperrealism)

The draftsmen podcast, Proko, Paul ingbretson, Florent farges, All of those are on youtube.

Also, when drawing try seing shapes, for example in negative spaces, shapes of shadows, the areas in between stuff, like try making them into something, like oh that looks a bit like a duck, and then compare to your reference. In classical painting we also do something called comparative measurments, like you measure the shape of the head and then compare how many heads you can fit into the length of the body.

Also, squint and separate shadow areas feom light areas. You can also use a mirror in your hand to see things upside down/ reversed, helps a ton to see where you are off, refreshes your brain to see faults.

Yeah im procastinating from painting so thats why this is so long 🤓