As an artist myself, I have to say that it's more six of one, half a dozen of the other. In a word, the
Golden Mean.
Too
much freedom and you never get anything done; too
little freedom and nothing you make is worthwhile. Having some directives and timeframes to work within can prevent you from getting side-tracked, never finishing anything, or never beginning anything. However, too many — or worse, yet, micro-management — strangles creativity and its fruit.
Igor Stravinsky (who devoted an entire chapter of
his book on music to composition, focusing on the topic), referred to this as having constraints, and, like myself, found it helpful.
(From my personal experience: media or subject matter which I thought I didn't like, when being made to use them, I sometimes fell in love with, or came up with a long series of good content — others I came to have an educated dislike of, which I guess is
a kind of improvement. There was also the time I had to write an essay on a book I positively loathed, and my professor, hearing my difficulty, advised me to write my essay on why I hated it — it was among the best I wrote that semester. I'd say it's all about balancing the right amount of constraint with the right amount of freedom.)