Self Healing Art Course..... Week 1

As I mentioned before, I have joined an online art course which started this week. Well, guess what, had no time or energy AT ALL to do art this week so I am already playing catch up, not that it really matters. It is called Art, Heart and Healing and is free to join. I managed to watch the first of this week's two videos on Monday, so had a week to think about the hard part, which is the therapy exercise related to the course. This morning (Sunday, it may be Monday by the time I post this) I re-watched the first video and sat down to put pencil to paper and ..... nothing. I found the exercise of putting down your negative thoughts (pop over and watch the video if you want to understand) soooo difficult, probably because most of them are not art related but about the way I am and the aspects of my behaviour that I am not happy with. Trying to give that a positive spin sure gave me a headache!! But it is interesting to do the exercise. So what I came up with as a message was this.....


for me it works and reminds me I am only responsible for me, not everybody else. We also had to choose a word - I chose balance, because balance is what makes me happy, when all the different aspects of my life have a chance and nothing or no one is being crowded out by something else.


With regard to the portrait/journal page that we were doing as a first project, I followed Tam's instructions really closely as I wanted to focus on the techniques she used and see if they worked for me. Like many others on the course I am making do with the supplies I have so I used a sheet of A3 water colour paper, some (fairly cheap!!) soluble crayons, pencils and acrylic paint. I really liked working with the watercolour paper and the crayons are great - I've had them anbout a year but only used them to make some backgrounds a few weeks ago - I could get hooked. The figure is supposed to represent yourself and I did stick quite rigidly to that - lol, what am I saying, I wish I did look that good, with no crows feet and glasses. The point is, what I had in my head was the image I kind of hold of myself, not what I see in the mirror(self delusional or what - don't panic, that was a joke, not a negative comment). Doesn't she look calm?

I have painted a couple of small faces before, but I have never ever painted on this scale and found Tam's instructions so amazingly easy to follow. I think because I was thinking of it as 'me' it ended up more stylised and representational than a whimsical interpretation but hey, it's all a learning curve and overall I am really pleased with the finished result, except perhaps that I would have preferred not to have the portrait so far over to the right. The background I am not entirely happy with so I may work a bit more on that. Ha ha, what am I like, I chose the right words lol. I love layers, I've just never done them this way before. Agonising over my internal battles and choosing words aside, this took less time than I have been known to spend on an ATC so maybe I am more comfortable working bigger. After the initial terror of a piece of A3 sized paper I was fine, but then I was copying a formula which is always easier than coming up with something yourself. Certainly something to think about though.