Your five senses are very important to the way your creative gifts have been shaped. Your mental makeup is different from everyone else's, and so is your creative talent. The first step in developing your creative talent is to become comfortable with what you can do instead of what you can't do. Finding your comfort zone is the beginning of getting in tune with your creative gifts.

Visual Creativity

Do you imagine in pictures? Are they in color or black and white? Can you hold a picture in your mind and examine different sections, as you might do with a photograph or a painting? Could you project a picture from your mind onto a piece of paper and trace around the outline? If you can do any of these things, try sketching something that you visualize in your mind.

Can you look at a person or an object and hold the image in your mind after you look away? Can you paint or sketch that image? When you see a color or a shadow, can you see many different shades of color in it? Can you imagine yourself in a picture in your mind? Could you sketch yourself?

Do you see energies or auras when you look at things or people? Can you imagine pictures in your mind from a different time period, past or future? Can you look at a piece of wood or stone or even an undeveloped landscape and see what could be created from it? Can you imagine a piece of fabric as a completed sewing project? Do you use your visual sense in any other way that might help you be more creative?

Have you ever dreamed an idea for creating something artistic? Do you enjoy decorating, or creating appetizing and colorful meals? Can you imagine stories in your mind that unfold like a motion picture? Have you ever done something creative but can't remember actually doing it? Can you change a visual image in your mind and reproduce it on paper?

Auditory Creativity

Can you imagine sounds, voices, or music in your head? Can you reproduce sounds that you hear in your mind or in reality? If you can, is your pitch accurate? Can you hear a song in your mind and reproduce it perfectly, vocally or on an instrument? If you play a musical instrument, can you play by ear?

Are you more sensitive to out-of-tune music than other people? If you play an instrument, was it hard for you to learn to read music? If this is the case, your ear may have been trying to overrule what you read. Can you both read music and play by ear? Have you ever tried composing music?

Can you imagine a story taking place in your mind that includes voices or other sounds? Can you visualize and hear the story at the same time? Can you write it down? If the information comes too fast, can you slow it down or rerun the action and dialogue? Do you enjoy writing poetry or letters, or do you keep a diary? Have you ever dreamed story plots, and if so, have you written them down?

Emotional Creativity

If you can create stories in your mind, do you experience any emotions connected with them? If you imagine several characters in your story, can you experience the emotions of each one? Can you imagine what it would feel like to become one of the characters, experiencing his thoughts and emotions? Do you enjoy acting out or imagining what it would be like to be a certain person, real or made up?

Can you imagine what it would feel like to live in a different time or in a different culture? Can you imagine the emotions of animals, either wild or domestic? Can you imagine and describe the feeling of different textures and temperatures? Could you imagine how you'd look wearing different items of clothing and then describe how each one feels?

Do you like to work with your hands? Can you imagine a picture in your mind and then build it or create a model of it? Do you enjoy making crafts, knitting, or sewing? Do you use ready-made plans, create your own, or combine the two? Do you feel relaxed when you use your hands to do something creative? When you work with your hands, do you get lost in time?

If you play music, do you feel the emotion or the soul of what you are performing? When you are acting, dancing, or reciting poetry, do you feel the emotion of the work you are performing? Do you sometimes feel that the music has taken you over, and you are not controlling the performance? When you have completed a creative act, do you feel emotionally exhilarated or drained? Do you feel so passionate when you are involved with your creative outlet that you begin to find the experience overwhelming and painful?

Creativity in Taste and Smell

When you imagine a picture in your mind, can you also experience the smells or tastes? Could you move around the picture describing the different smells or tastes? Can you compare tastes or smells with different sense images, such as sounds, feelings, or colors? Can you imagine a picture or story from a different time and describe what the foods taste and smell like?

Can you imagine a motion picture in your mind and experience the tastes and smells that go with it? Could you describe them as you write the story down? Can you imagine and describe the smells of certain scenes, animals, or people? If you paint, can you imagine the smell of the paint thinner or linseed oil?

Can you create a recipe in your mind, experiencing what the taste will be like as you blend certain ingredients? As you create this recipe, can you imagine what it will smell like? Can you use all your senses to imagine creating a meal, experiencing the sights, sounds, emotions, texture, tastes, and smells? Can you prepare the meal in reality the same way as you imagined it in your mind?

Can smells or tastes help you to imagine stories or pictures in your mind? Could you imagine emotions that are related to smells and tastes, and then describe them accurately so that others might experience them? Do you find that certain smells or tastes can help put you in a creative mood? Do you have any other creative interests that you relate to taste, smell, or any of the other senses?