Art Therapy Monster

Lately I've been enjoying learning a little about art therapy and practicing some interventions on myself. Toward those ends, I read all the blogs by art therapists I can find (and I wish more of them blogged as I haven't found all that many). However, the few I do read are pretty awesome and today one of them, Carolyn Mehlomakulu, did a post on metaphorizing problems into monsters via art media of some kind. Rather than elaborate on the dynamics here by quoting too extensively, I'll link to the post in question and encourage people to go have a read. It's interesting stuff.

At any rate, thus was I inspired to create Fran The Tired Monster.

Let me tell you about my monster. I have three children under three. (Well, one of them won't be born for another few months yet, but she still has all kinds of ways of making her presence very much known. So practically speaking, I feel I have three under three already.) I've always wanted at least a few kids and I think there are advantages to having them close in age. Realistically, though, I expect that most of those advantages are things we will be experiencing more in the years to come. Right now, I love my babies bunches but I'm tired a lot.

It so happened that I was particularly tired by the time I got some time to myself today, as I'm fighting off a cold and so is Little Guy, and neither kid was good about taking a nap this afternoon (erm, is this all starting to sound too Dickensian)? I ended up hiring the teeenager across the street for an hour of babysitting so I could rest. Whilst relaxing and skimming the feeds on my google reader, I came across the post mentioned above and thought, "Ah, yes, this is what I will do right now. Make a portrait of my monster of woe."

And so, here is Fran, poor girl:

I didn't actually finish her by the time the kids came home, but that was okay because I set Bear up with some art supplies and we worked together companionably for a bit while Little Guy played on the floor. It was kind of fun-- blending feelings of self pity and humor into an understanding monster that I now have some affection for.

 I think, after the kids are settled for bed, Fran and I will satisfy a pregnancy craving and treat ourselves to a bowl of mint chocolate chip icecream. With vanilla wafers and whipped cream and bananas. Now that is the way to make friends with a monster. :)

Ciao.

How I Use Art Journaling as Art Therapy

I'm finding that art journaling really is a therapeutic process, especially the more so as I let go of consciously controlling the evolution of a page and just follow the flow. These days I often find myself reaching for my journal when I'm a bit frustrated or stressed, and it usually happens that by the time I've finished a page I'm feeling lighter and a measure of tranquility has re-established itself. I don't think it's just a distraction from negative emotions-- the journaling seems actually to help work them out as the frustration and negative energy gets channeled into the page via squiggles, sharp lines, energetic scribbling, or what have you. Catharsis. I like to notice how I'm feeling as I work. . . thus simply making for a very inexpensive and self directed art therapy. A win all round, in my book. :)

When I began this particular page I was regrettably a bit edgy and irritable. I picked up my journal and started writing in pencil, in different directions and handwriting fonts all across the page. After this was done I went over it again with more writing. I did this a few times. I just wrote whatever I was thinking. It was very free flowing, unfiltered, and spontaneous. (Venting, you might say. :P) Then I colored over all of it with a blue neocolor water soluble pastel. By the time I finished that layer of coloring, I was already much calmer. Swirling water over the page with a wet brush was an additionally soothing enterprise.

Once the page was dry, I was intending to doodle over it with a black sharpie and be done. However. . . my sharpie was not in my art supply box! I spent some time in futile searching all over my house, any place I thought I might have been likely to leave a black sharpie. All to no avail. This was disappointing. Somewhat grumpily, I sat down at the page again and grabbed the nearest supplies to hand, which happened to be my daughter's box of sidewalk chalk and a tube of glue.

I drew frustrated marks in chalk on the page and then rubbed them in vigorously with my fingertips. Then I dotted glue all over the page and smeared it over the chalk, again using my fingers. Now this. . . was actually looking rather good. I wish I had taken pictures at this stage. Pencilled journaling was showing through the blue, which was now mottled and softened by chalky colors, and made a bit shiny by the coat of glue.

I stared at it trying to think what to do next. Taking a cue from projects I've seen on Judy Balzer and Carolyn Dube's blogs, I began hunting for "people in the paint". Lo and behold, it did seem as though a shadowy shaped couple was trying to emerge from the depths. They were even holding hands! This was better than I had hoped for. I outlined them with paint pens, highlighting them here and there with neocolors to bring out their shape a bit more. Then I fingerpainted with some acrylics paint around them, did some more journaling over this, added my words, "If you trust the process you will see life emerging from the depths", and  layered more chalk, coloring, and smeared glue to the page until I was happy with it.
I also gave the woman, "life", a glued on fabric face.

I can't really describe how satisfying it felt to work on this and what a surprise the final page turned out to be. I am so glad to have discovered art journaling! This was the best thing to have come out of the hyperemesis. The fly in the ointment is I spelled "emerging" wrong, but meh. We embrace imperfection around here! :)

Until next time,
Leah

Painting Circles For Relaxation (an art therapy exercise for my art journal)

Even though it is has been nearly three weeks since the hyperemesis began to fade away and I am  functional again, I find I still get exhausted so easily. I am bone tired right now and all I've really done today is take care of my kids. I'm trying to be patient. I guess it takes a little while to gain one's strength back. Little Guy (my seven month old) has been sleeping poorly the last few nights and that may also be part of it.

But enough of my moaning. I will write about my art journaling adventures, which is what this online meta journal of mine is at least loosely about in any case. Yesterday both babies (I still think of the two year old as a baby) took blessedly long naps, and I spent a happy couple of hours resting, curled up on the sofa with my laptop and a mug of chamomile tea. During this cozy and silent interval, I did a lot of blog surfing, reading, and sprinkling of comments of good cheer across the blogosphere. It's incredible-- all of the amazingly talented and sensitive bloggers you can find just by following links for part of an afternoon. :) One blog that I paused at for awhile was Art Therapy Reflections by Karen Wallace. I felt very pulled into the idea of an art therapy exercise for de-stressing she suggested to someone in a comment on this post.

 "Take a large piece of paper. Have lots of paint. Start by doing some deep breathing and centering. Standing and moving the whole body, make large arm movements and paint large circles. Work big until your body feels relaxed and stretched, then start coming in smaller by making smaller shapes while saying out loud or to yourself things you want to release about the day. Keep working smaller until you reach the size you want to continue working at. Then paint one thing that you enjoyed about the day. This painting usually is abstract with lots of colors and feelings. It is a good stress releaser, try it. Whenever you need to release and de-stress."

That sounded so good, I thought, so relaxing, the idea of just painting/coloring/drawing circles to relax and unwind. I filed it away in my mind as something to try someday, and today (again during nap time, oddly enough) I actually did so.  I tweaked the idea a little bit, as I didn't have a very large piece of paper on hand, and I never got around to the "something I enjoyed about the day" part because I became so engrossed in my circles. But anyway.

Using water soluble pastels, I started with drawing turquoise circles, then filled them in with concentric circles in reds, blues, and yellow. I painted over these to bring out the color. Then in the background I drew soft wavy lines in dark blue, lightly colored over the background with yellow, and added water to make it blurry and greenish. I loved the way the background looked. My circles seemed a little boring, though, so I kept adding layers of paint and water to make them brighter. Then I painted their outer rims in red to give them a little more oomph, but something still felt lacking. Impulsively, I started to circle one with a black sharpie marker, and, wow, it popped. "Where have you been all this art journal pages life, oh black sharpie?" I thought, and it kind of took off from there-- outlining, circling, dotting. Below are pics of the end result, this time taken by H, who is better with a camera than I am. I will say this was a great de-stressor, and I was quite happy feeling by the time it was done. It's a happy page.

Gratitude

I created this page for Simon Says Stamp and Show's "Thank You" challenge.

You know, being new at all of this, I had to think a little bit about this matter of participating in blog challenges before I could decide whether or not I was okay with doing so. Was this in keeping with my purposes for my art journal and blog? Would creating pages here and there around themes for public  challenges somehow take away from the journal-y-ness and spontaneity of my little project? Would I become more stressed and self conscious about creating? I decided that really, there was no reason this should be so. No reason I couldn't just take a theme as a jumping off point for inspiration and just do whatever I felt like with it. Indeed, maybe that is part of the point of these things. There is also something nice about participating in things in general. Human beings like doing that. I figured that by staying realistic about my expectations for myself, I could manage to link up without losing my soul.

That orienting attitude worked out for this, my third art journal page, which turns out to be the most personal and journal-y one I've done so far-- I think partly because I used some of my own words instead of sticking with literary excerpts, and also because this page was very much a spontaneous evolution. I didn't plan out any of the steps ahead of time, I just went with the flow.

I was in a different sort of headspace when I worked on this page than I usually am when I work on art journaling or do anything hands on and creative. For one thing, I was feeling really sick and was very discouraged about that. This was yesterday evening. I had had a fabulous Thanksgiving day and had been feeling very well, but somehow that evening my pregnancy nausea came back and hit me nearly full force. I thought I had eaten carefully and in moderation, but who knows. It almost felt like hyperemesis starting all over again.This discouraged me more than usual, because I have so enjoyed feeling better the last week or so and had ardently hoped the debilitaing ill feelings were entirely a thing of the past. I started to feel depressed about this, and I suppose fatigue, post holiday let down, and good ol' fashioned pregnancy hormones may have been contributing to that feeling.

So, after the kids were settled, I propped myself up in bed on some pillows and parked my box of art supplies next to me, hoping to distract myself from the nausea and pull myself out of my low mood by working on my gratitude page. It took a little while, but proved effective on both counts.

I forgot to take photos of this page in progress, but will describe what I did here. Using gel pens, I loosely traced some quilting templates of flowers, from Elise M. Campbell's book, Winning Stitches. I colored their centers and added some doodled accents with the gel pens as well. Then I came in with my texts. I chose a quote from Alexander Schemman that has been kicking around in the back of my head for the last few months, "Everyone capable of thanksgiving is capable of salvation and eternal joy." I was happy to have such a timely opportunity for using it. I also wrote, "Humility and gratitude form the gateway to spiritual peace and all blessings," which is a Leah original, I believe. I had jotted it down in my journal (my other, non-art, pen and paper journal) awhile back.

Then I thought I'd personalize the page a bit more by moving from the general to the particular, so I wrote: "I am grateful that hyperemesis ended in time for me to enjoy cooking and eating Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends." I also dated the page. A prosaically phrased little sentiment, but really that is the one thing I felt the most grateful for this Thanksgiving. Then I remembered my kids and that I was also thankful for them, so added their nicknames, scribbled in spaces here and there.

I colored over the whole thing with a sky blue pastel, then painted over the page with water. The ink on the flowers I had most recently drawn and on the wording began to smudge, but I decided that was okay-- smudgy was okay for this one. I even liked the way it made the words look. When the page had dried a little, I colored in the flowers and then painted the page with water again,  letting the colors smear and run together. After it dried I did this a second time, coloring some in the spaces between the flowers as well.

By this time a couple hours had passed and I was sleepy, feeling better, and both more content and more relaxed. Yay for art journaling! Therapeutic, yes? I did not think I was done with the page. I wanted to color some more in the flowers with orange or pink, or both, but I was then nearly asleep, so decided to put if off until the morning. I happened to wake up early today, feeling pretty refreshed, and with my art journal page the first thing in my thoughts. H and the kids were all still sleeping, so I got up and went and sat in the guest room with my art journal, intending to complete my handiwork before they woke up. But when I saw the page again, I felt oddly hesitant to alter it. I just wanted to let it be what is was. That feeling won out and so I spent the morning lull surfing the internet instead of tweaking the page. It's very smudgy, watery, and random, but I think it is one I will take pleasure in remembering creating. It will remind me of Thanksgiving 2012, my third pregnancy, and hyperemesis recovery.