Create Art for You!
This month I have teamed up with Jocelyn Kelso from Inspired Design. Jocelyn is a graphic designer and artist.
Creating art can be a satisfying form of creative expression. For NDs, it is an excellent way to be in flow. Entirely present for the moment you are experiencing. It is also a form of expression that is non-verbal, so NDs down need to slow down or speed up their thinking, think of the correct words to use, or pay attention to the tone or quality of their voice.
Creating art has also been linked to:
- Decreases stress
- Decreases impulsivity
- Decreases distractibility
- Decreases anxiety
- Increases creative thinking
- Increases problem-solving skills
- Increases memory
- Encourages positive self-esteem
If you feel like you are good at art, consider creating your artwork to put on a wall in your home that adds color(s) you love and evoke desirable feelings whenever you look at it. If you feel like you aren’t good at art, I (Sheila) strongly encourage you to create art anyway for all the reasons above. You don’t need to share it if you don’t want to, but it could lead to great conversations. Like in the life of NDs, there are no shoulds, musts, or have to in art. This art is for you!
It is about the process of creating and not about the product. It is about curiosity and not about judgment.
I (Sheila) consider myself more an art historian than an artist. I have a degree in Art History, and I am a docent at the Denver Museum of Art, but I love creating art. I will be brave here and show you one of my pieces to encourage you to create your own.
This oil pastel looks non-representational, but it is a portrait of a close friend who passed away. Or at least my experience of being his friend. Creating it helped me process his death, and his wife has the original hanging in her kitchen.
I (Jocelyn) have been an artist my entire life and was blessed (and cursed) with the ability to draw and paint very realistically from a very early age. I enjoyed receiving lots of praise and recognition for my art and found satisfaction in how well I could represent horses, flowers, people – almost any subject. This blessing also created a lot of self-imposed pressure for everything I did to be great, and that took some of the joy out of making art. I didn’t begin to loosen up, to “draw outside the lines,” to be free and abstract with my art until I was in my 40s. I urge others to be free with their art and set aside the inner critic as much as possible, rather than being attached to it being good or looking like what you intended.
Read on for some thoughts about creating your very own art and step-by-step instructions to make this an easy and enjoyable adventure for you.
- Have FUN!
- Let your imagination and creativity flow.
- Feel free to get messy, if that feels good to you.
Let’s get started with a guided art project by Jocelyn:
What are your favorite colors? What colors make you feel good, soothe you, or energize you? Wouldn’t it be fun to have a piece of art on your wall that you made in your favorite colors?
- Choose how you want to feel when you look at this art. Consider these below, or come up with your own.
- Happy
- Calm
- Energized
- Proud
- Excited
- Inspired
- Relaxed
- List your favorite colors
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See the graphic that shows basic colors and their meanings. Feel free to consider these when choosing colors to use in your artwork.
- Pick your medium:
- Colored construction paper or another type of paper
- Paint
- Color Pencils
- Color Markers
- Oil Pastels
- Pick a size and surface for your art:
The easiest to start with is a Poster board. It can be any size you choose, from 8×10″ to 24×36″.
Or buy a stretched canvas of any size or shape. It is best to purchase pre-stretched, and gesso’d to prepare the surface for paint.
An employee at the art store can also make recommendations, depending on what art medium you’ve chosen.
Day 1:
Look at art online. Look up the artists below for inspiration:
- Jackson Pollack
- Clifford Still
- Henri Matisse
- Pablo Picasso
- Paul Klee
- or another favorite
Day 2:
Choose how you want to feel when you look at this art.
- Happy
- Calm
- Energized
- Proud
- Excited
- Inspired
- Relaxed
List your favorite colors.
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Day 3:
Buy art supplies-Click HERE for a downloadable PDF
Day 4:
Start your art project.
Things to consider:
- Old shirt or apron to protect your clothing
- Newspaper or large pieces of plastic to protect the surface you’re using.
- Paint outside
Before you begin:
- I suggest you sit quietly, close your eyes, and take at least 3-5 long, deep breaths.
- Allow yourself to relax and drop your shoulders. BE aware of thoughts or feelings and let them drift away.
- You might ask yourself what you see in your mind’s eye.
- What colors, what shapes? Are they curvy or angular, or both? What feelings come up?
Open your eyes and grab your paints or scissors and paper, and let your creativity start flowing. The less thinking, the better; begin putting paint on the art surface or cutting shapes and seeing what arises and how it comes together.
Hint:
Use Pomodoro or another timer app and play with your materials for 20 minutes.
If that’s enough for you for one day, stop.
If you’re in the flow, start another 20-minute cycle.
Repeat as many times as you would like or as time allows.
Put your art in progress, or your finished art, where you can see it and look at it for a few days. Start by taping it to a wall near eye level. Be with what you’ve created, without judgment. Notice shapes, colors, areas, and how you feel when you look at them. If you like certain areas and not others, BE with that. Let it inform you if you’d like to try another art piece or if you’re satisfied with what you see on the wall. If you’ve created several pictures, put all of them on the wall together. Maybe all the pieces together will evoke something with a more significant impression for you than a single picture.
Since this is for you, so you get to decide if you like it or not. What feelings does it evoke when you look at it? Is it something you’d like to see every day? Even if it’s different from what you intended, it might be exactly what you want or need, at least for now. Do you want it in your bedroom, for your eyes only, or would you like it in a central living area where others can see and enjoy it, too?
Day 5 and beyond:
Come back to your project again, or start a new one.
Review these notes whenever you’d like to start another art project by clicking HERE to download the instructions.
We wish you happy creating!
Big Bang Coaching, LLC provides coaching for the neurodiverse.
