17 Fun Online Creative Breaks

For those of you wanting a little creative break today, here’s a roundup of amusing and inspiring sites I’ve mentioned before. Some people call these time-wasters, but since they all stimulate creativity, I consider them time very well spent!

Sketch Swap: Draw something with your cursor and submit it, then receive a picture someone else created.

This is Sand: Click on the tiny gray box at the top left of the screen for instructions. You can use your cursor to drop digital sand of different colors and create beautiful virtual designs.

Magnetic Poetry: An electronic version of the refrigerator magnets that turn us all into poets.

Language is a Virus: A variety of inspirational devices including writing prompts, a character name generator, a poetry generator, the text collage, madlib poems, the haiku-a-tron and much more.

Wordle: Turn your words into a cloud.

Mr. Picasso Head: Have fun with this this twist on the childhood “Mr. Potato Head” game.

String Spin: Click and draw with your cursor, watch your sketch rotate in 3D, then hit the button that puts it into full spin to create amazingly intricate patterns.

Character Description Generator: Use this to create quirky people for fun or fiction writing.

Still Life: Create a still life in the style of the Masters with this imaginative interactive website from the National Gallery of Art.  Note: It may take a couple of minutes to download, but it’s well worth the wait.

Collage Machine: Another  fun site from the National Gallery of Art: create a collage online.

Animation Station: Make your own animated cartoon.

Matisse’s Pieces: Pretend you’re Henri Matisse as you position, size and color various shapes to create your own cutout.

Make Your Own Music: Click on the squares to activate different tones, then listen as they produce gorgeous music when they touch each other.

Doodle Pad: Choose your color from the rows of crayons at the bottom, choose the thickness of the line using the slider at the top, and doodle away.

Splash Paint: Make virtual abstract designs with this fun online paint program.

Draw a Stickman: Draw a stickman, then help him out as he gets into trouble. Choose from two fun adventures.

Conduct a Band:  Create and conduct your own  beatbox or a capella band.

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Fun Creative Break: Make a Mobile Online

Here’s a site that lets you create a virtual interactive mobile. You can adjust the mobile’s shapes, colors, size, speed, orbit and balance. Be sure to try switching to Aerial View and turning on trails — this create spirographic patterns as the mobile spins.

Click here and have fun with this!
 

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And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
CLICK HERE!   (To learn more, click here)

Fun Creative Break: Pony Dance Party!

For some goofy fun, try The Pony Mixer. It lets you trick your pony out in different styles (rock, rave, Bollywood, punk, hip-hop, funk, boy band, love song), then watch as the pony gets down.

It’s absurdist creativity and total silliness to get your muse laughing!

And if you want to watch the pony’s original (non-tricked out) dance, here it is:

 

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And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
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Fun Creative Break: Play With Virtual Legos

 
For a little playbreak while sitting at your computer, try building something with virtual legos at this site. (For blue legos, hold the space bar.)

Have fun!

 

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CREATIVE BURSTS WORKBOOK!
And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
CLICK HERE!   (To learn more, click here)

Create Your Own Word Search Puzzle

Here’s a fun website that lets you create a word search puzzle with the words you choose: EdCreate.

The puzzle I created above contains the following words, if you want to try to find them:

MAGICAL    SKETCH    JOYFUL
IMAGINATION    DANCE    CREATIVITY
FLOW    POETRY    JOURNALING
SING    PAINT    MEMORY
IMAGE    MUSE    CREATE
WORDS    SCULPT

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CREATIVE BURSTS WORKBOOK!
And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
CLICK HERE!   (To learn more, click here)

19 Fun Online Creative Breaks

For those of you wanting a little creative break today, here’s a roundup of amusing and inspiring sites I’ve mentioned before. Some people call these time-wasters, but since they all stimulate creativity, I consider them time very well spent!

Sketch Swap: Draw something with your cursor and submit it, then receive a picture someone else created.

This is Sand: Click on the tiny gray box at the top left of the screen for instructions. You can use your cursor to drop digital sand of different colors and create beautiful virtual designs.

Magnetic Poetry: An electronic version of the refrigerator magnets that turn us all into poets.

Language is a Virus: A variety of inspirational devices including writing prompts, a character name generator, a poetry generator, the text collage, madlib poems, the haiku-a-tron and much more.

Passtime: Three “creative time wasters,” including instructions on writing a haiku using the phone book.

Wordle: Turn your words into a cloud.

Mr. Picasso Head: Have fun with this this twist on the childhood “Mr. Potato Head” game.

Right Brain vs. Left Brain Creativity Test: Take this test to learn which side of your brain is dominant.

String Spin: Click and draw with your cursor, watch your sketch rotate in 3D, then hit the button that puts it into full spin to create amazingly intricate patterns.

Character Description Generator: Use this to create quirky people for fun or fiction writing.

Still Life: Create a still life in the style of the Masters with this imaginative interactive website from the National Gallery of Art.  Note: It may take a couple of minutes to download, but it’s well worth the wait.

Collage Machine: Another  fun site from the National Gallery of Art: create a collage online.

Animation Station: Make your own animated cartoon.

Matisse’s Pieces: Pretend you’re Henri Matisse as you position, size and color various shapes to create your own cutout.

Make Your Own Music: Click on the squares to activate different tones, then listen as they produce gorgeous music when they touch each other.

Doodle Pad: Choose your color from the rows of crayons at the bottom, choose the thickness of the line using the slider at the top, and doodle away.

Splash Paint: Make virtual abstract designs with this fun online paint program.

Draw a Stickman: Draw a stickman, then help him out as he gets into trouble. Choose from two fun adventures.

Conduct a Band:  Create and conduct your own  beatbox or a capella band.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CREATIVE BURSTS WORKBOOK!
And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
CLICK HERE!   (To learn more, click here)

Creative Break: Conduct a Band!

Here’s a fun way to spend a quick break: Incredibox is a site that lets you create and conduct your own  beatbox or a capella band. I had a great time playing around with all the variations! Click here to enjoy.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CREATIVE BURSTS WORKBOOK!
And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
CLICK HERE!   (To learn more, click here)

18 Fun Online Creative Breaks

For those of you wanting a little creative break today, here’s a roundup of amusing and inspiring sites I’ve mentioned before. Some people call these time-wasters, but since they all stimulate creativity, I consider them time very well spent!

Sketch Swap: Draw something with your cursor and submit it, then receive a picture someone else created.

This is Sand: Click on the tiny gray box at the top left of the screen for instructions. You can use your cursor to drop digital sand of different colors and create beautiful virtual designs.

Magnetic Poetry: An electronic version of the refrigerator magnets that turn us all into poets.

Language is a Virus: A variety of inspirational devices including writing prompts, a character name generator, a poetry generator, the text collage, madlib poems, the haiku-a-tron and much more.

Passtime: Three “creative time wasters,” including instructions on writing a haiku using the phone book.

Wordle: Turn your words into a cloud.

Mr. Picasso Head: Have fun with this this twist on the childhood “Mr. Potato Head” game.

Right Brain vs. Left Brain Creativity Test: Take this test to learn which side of your brain is dominant.

String Spin: Click and draw with your cursor, watch your sketch rotate in 3D, then hit the button that puts it into full spin to create amazingly intricate patterns.

Character Description Generator: Use this to create quirky people for fun or fiction writing.

Still Life: Create a still life in the style of the Masters with this imaginative interactive website from the National Gallery of Art.  Note: It may take a couple of minutes to download, but it’s well worth the wait.

Collage Machine: Another  fun site from the National Gallery of Art: create a collage online.

Animation Station: Make your own animated cartoon.

Matisse’s Pieces: Pretend you’re Henri Matisse as you position, size and color various shapes to create your own cutout.

Make Your Own Music: Click to create circles, then listen as they produce gorgeous tones when they touch each other.

Doodle Pad: Choose your color from the rows of crayons at the bottom, choose the thickness of the line using the slider at the top, and doodle away.

Splash Paint: Make virtual abstract designs with this fun online paint program.

Draw a Stickman: Draw a stickman, then help him out as he gets into trouble.

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CREATIVE BURSTS WORKBOOK!
And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
CLICK HERE!   (To learn more, click here)

Take a Splash Paint Break!

For a fun little creative break, check out Splash Paint. You can read all the instructions for various tools, but I just started messing around with it and had a great time splashing some virtual paint into abstract designs!

DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE CREATIVE BURSTS WORKBOOK!
And receive free creativity prompts delivered to your inbox twice a week.
To learn more, click here!

Take a Doodle Break!

For a quick creative break while you’re sitting at your computer, check out this Doodle Pad. Choose your color from the rows of crayons at the bottom, choose the thickness of the line using the slider at the top, and doodle away!

Take a Walk Through Tim Burton’s Mind

For a fun virtual museum visit, check out director Tim Burton’s Gallery. Use your mouse or arrow keys to walk Stainboy through the gallery and check out Burton’s artwork. You can click on the paintings if you want a closer look.

Creative Playtime: Make Your Own Album Cover

I had so much fun using random elements to create the “album cover” above! Apparently this has been floating around Facebook for a while, but I just saw it for the first time. Here are the instructions:

1. Go to wikipedia.org and hit Random Article. The title of the article is the name of your band.

2. Go to quotationspage.com and hit Random Quotation. The last four or five words of the last quote on the page is the title of your album.

3. Go to flickr.com and click on Explore -> Interesting photos from the last 7 days. The third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

4. Use Photoshop or a free online photo editor like picnik.com to put it all together.

A couple of caveats:

• This is creative play, so feel free to bend the rules — if you see another photo or quote you like better, use it!

• Many of the photos posted on Flickr are listed as having “All Rights Reserved.” If you plan to post your album cover (even to Facebook), it’s not cool to steal someone else’s creative work! I had fun playing around with artwork I found on Flickr, but for my album cover above, I used a photo I took at the San Francisco zoo a few years ago. Another option: try this Flickr tool, which generates random images licensed under Creative Commons licences that don’t prohibit derivative works.

Creative Break—Make Your Own Music

I love this wonderful website! Click to create circles, then listen as they produce gorgeous tones when they touch each other. Enjoy!

Creative Break—Make Like Matisse

Here’s another fun site that allows you to pretend you’re Henri Matisse! Matisse’s Pieces lets you position, size and color various shapes to create your own cutout. If you want to be inspired by the real thing, check out this page (be sure to scroll to the bottom).

Have fun, be playful and enjoy!

Creative Break—Make Your Own Cartoon

I had so much fun with Animation Station! Draw a background, then a series of sketches. Hit Play and watch your drawing come to life. I just created a simple stick figure walking across the screen, then a face gradually smiling, but you could do much more with this. It reminds me of an electronic version of the flip books many of us enjoyed creating as children.

Make the Items on Your Desk Come to Life

If you’ve ever fantasized about the inanimate objects around you having a life of their own, check out this interesting interactive site for a little creative break.

Here’s a description from the creators: “Each day, we are surrounded by seemingly insignificant objects, taking them from one place to the other, or leaving them on a table for weeks, without paying any attention to them. We ignore or forget them, using things only when we need to, making sure they don’t interfere or inhabit our space. But what if they were not so stable and subservient? What if they could swivel, bounce or even fly. And what if they did so all at the same time? We want to imagine a place where objects could live and move, harmoniously, and of their own accord. Without interfering with each other these objects would bounce, roll, turn and cross each other’s paths. This experiment is about re-discovering our daily surroundings. Each object is assigned to a letter on the keyboard, and can be activated or deactivated at any time.”

When you’re done, click on “Process” and see the steps that went into making this absurdist creative playground.

Creative Break—Collage Machine

Here’s another fun site from the National Gallery of Art: Collage Machine.

It allows you to position various shapes and images, then manipulate each item’s transparency, size and rotation. Or let the “Auto” button produce collages to give you ideas or as a starting point for your own creations.

Have fun, be playful and enjoy!

Creative Break—Interactive Still Life Fun

This imaginative website from the National Gallery of Art lets you create your own still life. Choose from a large variety of objects, arrange and size them, create shadows, add textures, paint and more.

You may run across a few surprises. The toy horse in the still life I created above kept trotting across the table when I tried to move it!

I had a great time playing with this site. It got the right side of my brain humming, and also made me laugh—both of which are wonderful ways to attract your muse.

Note: It may take a couple of minutes to download, but it’s well worth the wait.

Thanks to creativity coach Jill Badonsky for steering me toward this site in her latest newsletter .

@Sandy Ackers, Strangling My Muse: Struggling to Live a Creative Life in a Stressful World, http://www.stranglingmymuse.com