Creative Thinking expert Jim Connolly shares hundreds of free, Creative Thinking ideas, tips & resources.

Use creative thinking to sell more art

Jim Connolly February 2, 2026

You’re an artist. That’s great. I love artists. Just don’t become, or remain, a starving artist. Here’s what you need to know. It’s advice I’ve successfully shared with hundreds of artists over the years. Now I’m sharing it with you. And all it takes is a little creative thinking.

Let’s go!

There is something most popular artists have in common. No, it’s not that they’re outstandingly gifted. Many, like Banksy, are more copyists than artists.

The common link is the story the artist has crafted about themselves. A story that art buyers find compelling, connect with and buy.

Here’s the thing.

The thoughts and feelings associated with the artist, shape the art buyers perception of the art. It provides the lens, through which they see and value the art.

These stories are crafted from a kludge of things. Such as the way the artist looks, their fashion choices, their outrageous stunts, their polarising views on almost anything, their anti/pro (whatever) stances, their love of animals, their outspokenness, their edgy personality, etc.

Anything that makes them seem like a more interesting, unusual person, makes their art more compelling to a subset of art buyers attracted to the story.

Take Banksy

The artwork below isn’t from Banksy also known as Robin Gunningham. No. It’s from the French artist, Blek le Rat: real name Xavier Prou. Unlike Banksy, Blek le Rat didn’t craft a compelling story. He didn’t pretend to be a mystery man. He just put his work out there. Around 15 years later, Banksy copied the style, added a compelling story and took it to the bank (pardon the pun).

Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blek_le_Rat#/media/File:Blek_Le_Rat.jpg

There are countless other examples, where the artist’s story was 80 or 90 percent responsible for the artist’s fame and fortune. We see this widespread today, with so-called artist influencers. They will do or say almost anything, to build their story, grab attention and grow huge followings. And sell a ton of art along the way!

The story of you… the artist!

If you want to sell more of your work, to people who will become collectors of your art, give them a story about you.

Not a story about you. You’re doing that already, whether intentionally or not.

I’m referring to a story about you the artist.

Get creative. Use your creativity to show the world the artist behind your work. It will change how they feel about you. And feelings motivate people to buy, far more than logic.

Uncreative branding: How to avoid it!

Jim Connolly January 22, 2026

creative thinking, branding, uncreative, commodity

Friends. Here’s how to avoid being yet another victim of toxic branding advice.

If you’re following advice that’s from a video with hundreds of thousands of views, or following the advice from a book that’s read by hundreds of thousands of people, you’ll simply be copying the same branding strategy as millions of others.

Think about it.

When you feed your mind with identical advice to the masses, you’ll fade into an ocean of beige.
You’ll have an instantly forgettable brand.
And you’ll have just turned your art, your work/products and your business into a commodity. Ouch!

The reason there’s an entire branding industry, is because this type of mass-market crap doesn’t work. People watch the video, read the book, attend/buy the course… only because the last one failed. The next one will fail, too. And the next. Repeat.

The branding industry works for so-called branding experts, because their advice doesn’t work. If it worked, everyone who followed the advice from all those best-seller books, or watched those videos, would have a kick-ass brand. They wouldn’t need more branding books, videos or courses.

Successful branding isn’t a DIY project

To craft your unique brand, get advice that’s specific to you, your art, your work/products, your goals and your personality.

Anything less is not just ineffective, it’s toxic.

P.S. You’ll find this really useful. Stop buying crap: You’re already creative.

Uncreatives: Tech YouTube creators

Jim Connolly January 16, 2026

I recently watched some YouTube tech reviews. I was in the market for a new, high-end tablet device and wanted to make an informed choice. As someone with a keen interest in tech, I knew exactly what to expect from tech reviews by YouTube content creators.

I knew that most reviewers would evaluate tablet devices as if their viewers requirements were just like YouTube content creators. That’s to say, people deeply interested in video shooting, editing and conversion, who love lots of benchmarks, and speed-test data for video production apps. (Plus a little on gaming and Netflix performance).

Of course, most of their viewers don’t make YouTube videos every day. So, how did this happen?

Here’s my theory!

An early, viral YouTube review included lots of benchmarks, showing how the device handled the creator’s workflow, which was mostly video production. Other creators copied the format. Today, that’s the standard template.

Why are they using templates? They’re under extreme pressure. They’re getting new devices to review all the time, which they need to spend hours learning about. Then they have a limited amount of time for the development work and production of the video. The sooner they publish their review, the less competition they will be up against.

Extreme pressure?

Oh yes!

As I have said before, YouTubers who work without a production team, work both long hours and extremely hard. They’re feeding Google’s YouTube algorithm, which is relentless if you want to get the subscribers and views you need, in order to make a significant income.

I know a few YouTubers, including one with almost half a million subscribers. Today, she makes a very good living and has a team working with her. Yet she’s still working hard to build her subscriber-base and feed the insatiable algorithm.

However, there’s no need for tech YouTubers to produce such similarly formatted videos. They could build their own template. A template that’s more aligned with what a typical viewer is looking for, before they make a purchasing decision.

Surely, there is an opportunity out there, right now, for a creative thinking, tech savvy YouTuber to own a massive slice of the market?

Could it be you?

After all, in the age of anti creativity we need more, unique material out there to combat the AI slop problem.

Anti Creative: The AI slop problem

Jim Connolly January 11, 2026

anti creative, anti-creative, ai slop, creative thinking

The anti creative problem, and subsequent decline in creativity, is being made worse because of AI slop. Here’s a quick look at what you need to know.

What is AI slop?

AI companies scrape (copy) massive amounts of web content to train their models. The problem is, that content increasingly includes AI-generated text, rather than human material. In short, AI is now copying itself! This creates a feedback loop where AI trains on AI output. Over time AI models are losing the diversity and authenticity of the human creativity, which their models desperately need. The quality of AI output is currently degrading into what we now call AI slop, instead of improving as it had done previously.

How the anti creative problem is worsened by slop

Let’s quickly recall what the anti creative problem is: The homogenization of original thought, caused by the pervasive distribution of prescriptive and iterative ‘creativity advice’, resulting in a decrease of novel output.

Today, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of videos, social media posts, newsletters, articles and blog posts will be built using AI slop. A hefty subset of AI slop is aimed at artists and the those in the creative industries. What’s feeding the anti creative problem is that some of this incorrect, misleading content is convincing. Especially for those just discovering how to improve their creative thinking skills.

And worryingly, other slop content is on popular sites and endorsed at the highest level.

Yesterday, a reader sent me an article, which was around 80% written by AI… on a website that’s publicly endorsed by a Google Vice President!

Somebody simply gave that content a very light copyedit, unaware their AI content was slop! So, they’ve tried to humanize slop. It reads like crap, yet was published! This is happening more and more, as the quality of AI content (and answers) is getting progressively worse, not better. But many people will end up taking its bad advice, which they assumed they could trust, as it’s from a powerfully endorsed website.

It doesn’t stop there, with that one AI article. That article spreads in different ways, on different formats and get’s seen by a very wide audience.

Popular sites like that are targets for creative thinking content creators. They turn those posts into different forms of content. Videos, social media posts, YouTube shorts, Instagram/Facebook reels, TikToks, etc., which are then seen by more people. This further increases the pervasive distribution of prescriptive and iterative ‘creativity advice’, which I mentioned at the start.

How to avoid anti creative content & slop

I’ve already created 4, common sense, highly-effective ways you can successfully protect yourself from anti creative content. I’ve also found 2 articles that give helpful insights into the AI slop problem, which you may find useful. This is from Science.org: Resisting AI slop. And this one is from The Conversation: What is AI slop?

I hope you find this useful.

Don’t work for assholes

Jim Connolly January 6, 2026

creative thinking, bad clients, good clients, jim connolly

This site is focused primarily on helping artists and the creative industries. And in all those instances, you need to think long and hard before accepting commissions or projects.

Why?

Some clients are assholes to work with

They’ll do things like pay you late and use that as a control mechanism over you. Others are dull people and have a dull commission or project. You might get paid, but you’ll hate every moment of it. And you’ll never create your best work for assholes.

Your name, or brand, connected to subpar, uncreative work will lose you future opportunities and damage your reputation.

Some clients are wonderful

They’ll give you creative freedom, to do your very best work. They’ll remember they hired you because you’re the creative soul they need. They will pay you fairly, treat you well and you’ll be inspired to produce exceptional art.

Your name, or brand, connected with outstanding work will win you your next client, and the next, and the next… so long as you avoid working for assholes.

da Vinci learned the hard way

Apparently, Leonardo da Vinci said, ‘The Medici created and destroyed me’. They sponsored him, but for whatever reason, he also thought they destroyed him. That’s what working for assholes does.

Yes, if you’re 90-days away from defaulting on your bills, of course you should accept the commission or project, regardless.

My point is to learn how to identify the assholes and avoid them. Because if you work for a consecutive number of wonderful clients, you’ll never have to work for assholes again.

There will be a body of your best work out there, made with creative freedom.
Your best work will motivate your clients to tell everyone about you and your work.
That’s the type of word-of-mouth recommendation that opens doors for you.
It also hands you opportunities, which set your trajectory north, fast!

I learned all this the hard way, so you don’t need to. If you know anyone who might find this advice useful, be a friend. Share it with them.