Art for mental health🎨

Happy Saturday friends!

In the Women's Circle we've been art journaling and I'm reminded yet again, how much I enjoy it. How fun it is just to play. As adults we almost never allow play in our lives. For some reason that gets put aside as childish. What a shame! I knew I wanted a face on this spread and then her hair just flowed out. Then her hair became blue which reminded me of the ocean so of course I had to paint a dolphin and whale in all that watery hair! Because, why not?:

It's fun to try out new drawing and painting ideas without having to fully flesh them out. There is freedom in knowing I won't be able to hang it somewhere. This was a fun one and something I had never thought of—I saw a video where the artist talked about another way to draw freehand using the abstract background as reference points. Huh. Cool idea. I swished color all around the page, took a picture of it, and brought it into Procreate on my iPad. I had a photo I wanted to use from Pixabay (free reference photos) and I put that on a new layer in Procreate and changed the opacity so I could see the background marks through her face. Then I freehand drew her into my art journal using the marks and squiggles as reference points. It worked really well! I added flowers all around because, well, I have never done that before :-) Maybe I should make a video of that so I can explain it better with visuals.

I've also been revisiting my love of tiny paintings and created this itty bitty:

The paper is 3x4" but the painting size is only 2.75x3.75". I have a stack of 34 and growing. I like to leave them on my desk and put a new one on top every day. They make me smile. The most recent painting came from a photo I took from my Colorado farmhouse into my front pasture❤️

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This week I wrote other posts, along with today's: there is one about Raynie and a little art journal piece, you can read that here. Always neat to see art help my mental health!

I wrote a post about perfectionism in art and life and you can read that one here.

And finally one about my Aunt Katy who was recently diagnosed with cancer. You can read that here. I know, cancer in the family again. It's shocking and heartbreaking. She is in chemo as I write this (Friday.)

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ManChild and The Polar Bear share a special bond. When he sits down, she looks up at him asking him to pet her:

When he stops:

❤️❤️❤️

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Remember! From August 23rd to September 23rd I'm offering half off neurofeedback for all new clients! $35 instead of $70! Call, text, or email me if you'd like to give it a try!

Also, I'm moving towards a daytime option for a second Women's Circle (along with the Wednesday night group) and also an online version. I'm thinking possibly Monday mornings for the in-person but I'm not yet sure about the day for the online version. If you haven't contacted me about wanting to join either of those, please do: Call, text, or email me!

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And since I've already written those extra posts this week, I guess it's MEME TIME:

Brad and I got a big old laugh out of this one! 👇🏽

And the one that made me snort laugh:

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Thinking about starting or continuing the journey of self discovery? Let's talk!

Click each link for more info:

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Purchase originals and prints of my artwork, like this one👇🏽

Purchase tees and hoodies with my artwork, like this one👇🏽

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Thank you for reading :-)

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