"Trisha, what do I do if I can't think of anything to paint?"

We've all been there...

We've got a few hours to kill with painting, but no ideas of which to paint.

I head-off this problem. I use a mobile application called Trello to keep a list of all of my art ideas. Sometimes I'm half asleep when an idea comes to me. I grab my phone on my night stand, begrudgingly, and open Trello to add the idea to my list.

I'm driving down the road and see a striking composition in the landscape or on a rusted truck in front of me. I reach for my phone and snap a picture. Then at the next red light, I add the photo to my to-do list of art ideas in Trello.

(No, I am not lying. I really do wait for a red light to do it.)

The point is that we never know when inspiration will strike and if we wait for inspiration to strike at the exact moment that we have some free time in a day, we're leaving our art careers to chance. 

I don't want to leave my art career to chance. So I capture ideas when they strike and then keep a record of all of my ideas that I can work off of.

Then, in those moments where I have some time to paint, I do not need to agonize over a blank canvas, struggling to conjure up something to paint.

I open Trello.

I open my Art Ideas list.

And I scroll through until one of my, literally, hundreds of ideas jumps out at me to be created that day.

Really simple.

There's nothing you can do about the ideas that have passed you by up to now. But starting now, how about you keep a record of them? Then you'll never be at a shortage of ideas or inspiration and can avoid this issue altogether.

TRISHA WILES