Using Art Explorations To Relax My Anxiety

Feminine Mystique ©InnerSpirit

Creative Play With Technology

I have been playing for the past year and a half with the various art and painting apps that have come out for the iPhone. Every time something new comes out I have downloaded it and played to see which of the apps out there work the best, are the most versatile, and which ones can be combined by importing and exporting into each other to create further creative options, etc. I have been creating drawings and paintings on the iPhone for a while now, as I have been testing these new apps out. Up until now, I have posted most of these art explorations on my InnerSpirit facebook page in a photo album called "iPhone and iPad experiments" (see the link to the right of this post) if you would like to check out more of the artwork I am working on at this time. 

It has really been a lot of fun playing around with these apps and it has been therapeutic for me at the same time. Since I have not had a lot of time this past year, doing small projects such as these, have really helped me to feel creative without having to make a really long time commitment to a larger scale art project. I have also found that these new art apps have gotten me to explore and to play a bit more than normal and in the process, I think that I have gotten some pretty cool art out of the deal, along with helping to maintain my own sanity in a very trying time professionally and personally.

Untitled Work In-Progress ©Innerspirit

My Tax Refund Treat To Myself

I recently bought an iPad so that I could work with a little larger canvas (well, in reality, the canvas SIZE is not actually bigger since it is the same pixel dimensions in both the iPhone 4 and the iPad 2, but I don't have to enlarge it and reduce it as frequently in the iPad 2 as I do in the iPhone 4, so it FEELS larger). I also purchased the iPad 2 to explore using it for art therapy interventions with my hospice patients since I don't have a long visit time for setting up and tearing down of traditional media. I am in the process of getting together some initial interventions that will meet the goals of my patients using this medium, so it is a new adventure all the way around. 

I thought it might be interesting to post some of my iPad/iPhone work here on my blog and future updates on how things are going with my patients as I introduce some of these apps to them. I usually draw on the screen with my fingers, but I purchased a Pogo Sketch Stylus and two different Nomad Brushes (a long hair and short hair) to give my patients some personal preference options in addition to the fingerpainting option).

The first art piece on this page is titled "Feminine Mystique" and it was created on the iPad 2 in two different apps. I love the mystery of this female figure and it's apparent vulnerability . The second art piece is a "work in progress", so it is untitled currently. I imported a photo that I took on my iphone into one of the art apps and created and added some textures to it. I have recently moved this art into another app and I am currently adding some handrawn effects to it that I will post in another blog...stay tuned for more of this second one as it evolves.

Do you have any new art experiments you are working on? I would love to hear about them.

Much Love And Blessings,

D.

 

Playing With Blobs: Day 22

Still Playing With Photoshop

I got out my Wacom Tablet today to do a little playing since I have not used it in quite sometime. I started out with one of the drawings that I posted at the beginning of the month that I did in Fluid Painter and used that as the original background. Then I started playing with drawing various brush strokes, but I quickly decided that I did not like what was happening and switched gears. I ran the poster edges filter over the background and I got a cool effect that I liked and then I started just playing around with hues, saturation and layer effects until I got something that spoke to me today. I added some simple shapes and found a pleasing composition that was kind of fun! (click on the image to view a larger version)

I hope everyone will forgive me for not writing a lot today, I have been up since 4:00 a.m. to finish a 20 page research paper before starting work, on adolescent suicide and the art therapy interventions that can be used to help them with depression and other feelings and behaviors that increase the likelihood of suicide. My brain is now mush, but I wanted to do a little art and to at least post. More "verbage" tomorrow I hope when my brain gels back together and I can think again.  

I hope everyone is still having fun with Art Every Day Month! 

Blessings and Much Love,

D.

Feeling A Little Rough: Day 20

Revising A Blind Contour I Posted Last Year During AEDM. 

I am feeling a little "rough around the edges this morning". I slept in a bit, but I am still not feeling quite right. I started drinking my morning java in hopes of feeling a little more up "to par"...but it has not really helped. My head feels foggy and I am still quite groggy. I started thinking about this self portrait that I did last year and I thought I wanted to reacquaint myself with it. It seemed to be calling to me. Do you ever have art pieces that speak to you? I try to be sensitive to that with my art therapy work and I have come to believe that sometimes when you create something it has one message for you at the time and it can later come up in your consciousness that it is wanting to tell you more about yourself...this is what is going on with this piece today. (I have included both images here, the original one that I posted last year is the first one shown and the second one is the adjustments that I did this morning while I had my conversation with the piece)


Upon opening the piece...I was struck by the fact that it really does capture how I am feeling today, but my hair is much longer now...so I probably look a bit different. If you take that away and just focus on the face and the haggard feelings that are represented there...it captures my morning very accurately. I feel drawn, tired, and like I just want to go back to bed, cuddle under the covers and watch movies all day. Those days have long gone by the wayside when I had lots of time on the weekends to just hang out with my daughter, who was young then and just have a "movie day". Sometimes I long for those days, but the committments of school have temporarily consummed most of my weekend times. Of course, my daughter is also not small and she is away on her own now going to college in Chicago. I am looking forward to her being here for the holiday season and maybe we can watch a couple of movies together like we used to. We have a holiday tradition of hot cocoa, cinnamon rolls, and watching a few favorites like Christmas Vacation and A Charlie Brown's Christmas among others. 

I ask the drawing what else it wished to share with me other than making me painfully aware of the fact that I am tired...weary...and wanting to just be done with school. She stares back at me and boldly says "You have a resolve to complete what you started, you fear not finishing, you fear failure, yet you always resolve to move forward and reach the other side". I reply to her, "You are not telling me anything that I don't already know. Why was it so important for you speak to me today? Why did you tap, tap, tap into my conscious thoughts today?" She took a minute to just stare at me...I looked deep into the images eyes...they stared blatantly back at me, almost challenging me.

After several minutes of silence had passed, her voice took on a very serious tone as she spoke, "You are allowing your weariness to take over, and it will spoil your celebration that is soon come. Rest...replenish...and know that this hill is only as high as you allow it to become. Don't allow the berating voices you carry with you from your childhood to win. You have courage, resolve and resources that will carry you through until the end. Search within, and remember that you are following the path that has been laid before you by God's hand and this truth has been revealed in many ways over the years...trust him, lean into him...seek strength from him...and keep stepping forward."

Well, I guess she told me.

My day begins, as I see this image in my head and I try and tune into the "innerspirt" of God's plan for me and I will try and remember the many ways that this art therapy path has been laid out before me. I forget sometimes the "signs" of something bigger than myself when I don't see them tangibly visible before me every day. So my image came to remind me today. Funny how that works. 

Do your images that you create ever talk to you? Have you ever tried to ask your artwork a question as simple as "Why were you created today" or "What do you want to share with me today"? Try it if you haven't...you might be surprised when the image speaks back to you. Let me know your experiences with this in the past, or if you try this after reading this post...I would love to hear about your experiences with this.

Blessings and Much Love,

D.

Sometime In The Wee Hours: Day 17

Crunch, Crunch, Crunch...the stress of the end of the semester has been upon me for the past week. I have skipped out of Art Every Day Month the last few days to focus on my huge case study review for my Clinical III class. It was an important "gateway" to the approval process for my internship to begin next fall. I did pass that, so the crunching paid off, but now I still have a few more assignments to get in by the end of the month. I took some time in the wee hours of the night/early morning today to play a little bit with this abstract piece just to clear my head after typing for several hours straight. I could not even think anymore, so I enjoyed some relaxing play time creating this and now I can refocus with a clear head. (Click on the image for a larger view)

I should be used to this time of year after being in grad school for close to 8 years now with this double major. It sure seemed like a good idea back when I started this art therapy masters degree 3 years ago. It is still a good idea, it has just been harder and LONGER than I originally envisioned it to be. I was originally told that I would only need 21 credits of a 45 credit Masters in Art Therapy because all of my psychology credits and both of my research courses would all transfer into this Master's program from my Master of Social Work degree. I naively thought...WOW...with 4 credits a semester that would be about two and a half years and I would be done. So I went for it. Well...working full-time, not all the classes being offered when I was able to take them and the art therapy credentialing board changing the requirements midstream for how many credits must be done within the actual art therapy program, put me a little behind the original plan. But, plans sometimes have to be flexible if you want to succeed I am learning. Slowly but surely, I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Holiday Is Around The Corner
. .. but it always takes me by surprise each year with how crazy it gets during this time. The semester before the holidays is always the worst, because just as everyone else it getting ready for relaxed time with family and friends, I am still usually functioning on little sleep and void of any social interactions other than work. Everyone is asking me, what are you doing for Thanksgiving? Thanksgiving I think...I can't think that far out...though it is really only next week. For me I am only able to focus on one day at time and doing what I can to get all my assignments in, then I come up for air and wonder..."Yes, what AM I doing for the holiday?" It is about that same time that I am also craving a few glasses of holiday cheer to celebrate another semesters end.

Save a bottle of "cheer" for me PLEASE I say to friends and family...or maybe two this year! A nice "oaky, robust" Merlot sounds good about now or a nice "buttery and oaky", Chardonnay. What's your holiday drink of choice? It doesn't have to be alcoholic, just yummy and festive. I also LOVE to try nice new flavors of hot cocoa and coffee this time of the year.

Blessings and much love,

D.

Relaxing Digital Watercolor Playing For Me: Day 8

 I did not have a chance to do anything on Day 7 for my art contribution, but I have to remember that I don't have to do something every day...I can cut myself some slack. 

Day 8 Fluid Play

For Day 8 of Art Every Day Month I am posting these fun textures that I created on Fluid Painter which is another online art creation program by the same guy that created the Flame Painter program that I created my initial texture from my post on Day 6. I did screen shots of these images to save them to my computer. Both of these programs offer me a place to just let my mind melt...in this case quite literally, as the colors flowed in together (kind of reminds me of a lava lamp-for those who had one or may still have one)...which is about all I can handle some days with my emotional drains from the work that I do during the day.
 

Some of you who are "quick on the uptake" might have noticed that I said that I am "posting" these fun textures I created...not really indicating that I actually DID them today. Truth be known, I actually created them the same day I did the Flame Painter backgrounds, but I don't have anything to show today, time has not worked in my favor...so I am cheating a bit. Do you hate me?

In my defense, I figure that it's okay since some days allow more time than others for creative play. I hope to incorporate these with some other textures much like I did with the ones that I played with from Flame Painter on my previous posts. I hope to get back at creating a bit after tonight which is a major homework push. Better stop trying to look more productive to my blog friends than I actually am, and brew some coffee. It is going to be a long, late night of art therapy homework. You will all cut me some slack won't you?

Do you ever worry about your artist "image" and how other people perceive your efforts or your art? Does that affect how you do your art and how you might market your efforts? I find these things interesting, but then again...psychology and sociology intrigue me, can you tell?

Blessings and much love,

D.

Texture Playfulness Is The Name Of The Game: Day 5 and 6

I am posting quick since I have to get focused on homework this evening. A big art therapy case review is underway for our Clinical III course, so the rest of the weekend is focused on that.

Day 5 Texture Play
This day found me just quickly playing with some texture strokes on the computer on one of my new found online sources Flame Painter since I did not have a lot of time. This was a quick half hour, and I got the image above happening. It kind of reminded me of fireworks and got me thinking of summer days...not the fall days that we are experiencing now, which are cold and grey. I did a screen shot of this...low res...but okay for using as a background texture, given that I plan on "gritting" it up a bit anyway so I am hoping the resolution will still do okay with all the texture overlays. I won't really know until I print something out...everything looks good on the 72 dpi screen resolution.

In the Morning of Day 6 
I found myself playing a bit with some other textures and filters over coffee before starting on homework and heading out to the gym. I created both images by adding the texture photo to the right and then playing with various filters, layer blending modes and opacity's, and layer masks in Photoshop. Again, just works in progress to move forward on maybe as the month unfolds. You can click on any image to see it larger for more details.

The bottom image definitely needs some things brought out of the added "crackled" texture but I am playing and I really like the effect, but I need to enhance some of the circles and bring them forward a bit so the texture isn't taking over so much...but it is a beginning.

Now on to art therapy...treatment planning: goals, interventions etc. for my homework. Later this weekend I hope to check out what some others are doing on Art Every Day Month.

Suggestions or comments would be welcomed!

Blessings and Love,

D.

Fear Still Lives Within Me...and It Breathes Deeply Today

Create Art Everday, November 1
Today is the first day of the Art Every Day Challenge hosted by Leah Piken Kolidas that I have committed myself to undertake for my own creative growth. My luck would have it that the first day of art making would also be the day that I unexpectedly had to drive all the way to Chicago and back (about a 3 1/2 hour drive one way) to take my daughter back to college from a weekend visit home. My drive would have originally been slightly under 2 hours, one way to the Michigan City, Indiana, train depot. BUT, as we stood alone at the train station and wondered aloud why there were not more people traveling to Chicago on this Sunday night, we slowly began to read the digital sign above the depot that told us that there would be no scheduled train run that evening leaving from that depot due to some unexpected work being done on the tracks. The message told us that we could catch the train in Gary, Indiana (another half hour south). Needless to say, we could not get to Gary, Indiana by the time the next train left and we missed it by 5 minutes.

At this point, the next train was another hour and a half later and I was only 32 miles from Chicago...so my daughter got curbside service to her dorm at DePaul University in Lincoln Park. As I traveled home I remembered that it was November 1st and I had not done any art that day. I am embarrassed to say that a significant part of me breathed a sigh of relief and cautiously thought...oh, a good excuse to use, "I did not have the time". As I thought about that initial gut reaction, I realized that I was still very much afraid of what I was undertaking and if that was the case, I might be truer to myself to try to recognize the fear and to use the art to work with that fear. I remembered a book that I had read on fearing our own artwork (one of many I have plowed through over the years) and a quote came to mind.

"The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. One of the basic and difficult lessons that every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential." David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

Is what I fear my own failure of my work? I have struggled with that repeatedly through the years and still it haunts me. This quote is right; cognitively I KNOW it is right. Every logical part of me: the art teacher; the social worker; the future art therapist; the student; all agree that it is right. Nevertheless, the artist in me is terrified of failure. I have personally experienced and have studied enough therapy to know that this fear is stroked by my little "inner critic" which is also sometimes formed or at least influenced greatly by my "inner child". Neither of which realizations seem to comfort me when I actually undertake the art process.

I Must Leap Before I Can Fall
I believe for the art process to be real and authentic it must be emotional and that is should be felt from deep within our being. This is where I think I get caught, I fear leaping into it. I fear that deep emotion can sometimes arise from this process. I know from past experience with art that if I can just get started...just put a toe over the edge and get it wet...I can allow myself the freedom to fall into it and in doing so, I feel free during the creative flowing of the art. It is only again after the process is completed, that the fears arise again. I decided that this time I was going to look at this as an art therapy project and let the fear doodle it's way out to be seen, acknowledged and comforted ritualistically by talking to it and recognizing it's concerns. Sometimes, I have found that letting the fear appear in visual form to me takes some of its power away.

A New Tool For Drawing
I created the painting above in "Brushes" which is an iphone painting application. I have seen some of the hype about the cover of the New Yorker Magazine being created from this and I was a little curious. I also visited the flicker group of artists who were playing with this new tool. The beauty of this choice of media for me was that it was a new application for me so I was providing myself with a bit a way out of "creating a great art". I told myself that I could just play and let my apprehensions play out in the doodling aspect of a new process with no pressure. As I looked at the work once it was created, some things came into my mind. The unconscious choice of drawing some sort of a fruit suggested to me a feeling of wholeness of being and a comfort by the fruit remaining intact. The idea of biting into the middle of this fruit seemed both reproachable and delectable at the same time. It also struck me how much the fruit looked like a heart...and a "purple" heart at that. Hmm...a purple heart of bravery? Oh how art can reveal, even when we are not looking for as much introspection.

Off to the races, or let the eating begin!

Onward I trudge into day two, which is well into itself as I write this post about day one. I hope to still get some art done...though I will need to rely heavily on this first sketch, and it's purple heart as I move forward in the month long challenge. Baring my heart, which often reflects my soul, as I explore this art making is a journey that I am on. I am going to try and just let things happen as they will and I will be trying to hold my judgments at bay with each endeavor. Fear can be both a strong motivator and a serious foe on this road to enlightenment.

What are the types of things that you fear? Do you often have difficulties or fears around your art or have you accepted a personal challenge that makes you a little uneasy? What types of ways do you try to overcome your fears? I would love to hear from some of you and maybe out of your feedback we could start a list of "Proven Ways to Move From Fear to Success"...hmm...maybe another blog in the works.