Life is NOT ALL BUBBLES AND RAINBOWS!
My thoughts
Social media has a lot to answer for.
It is an unregulated cesspit of photos and imagery, and perfect pretty pictures that make majority of us feel really, truly crummy about our life.
I feel genuinely sorry for the children of this generation who are left fighting with filters, and perfect pictures and completely unattainable standards which really do not serve them finding their absolute and true self.
The one thing I have taken out of all my time while sitting with kids and creating art is that every single one of them has some sort of feeling of not being 'enough' not 'fitting in' feeling like they are somehow not good, or well received. Kids need a blimey break these days from all of the standards to which society have told them they need to be 'perfect' just so they can breath and take note of the parts of themselves that are absolutely perfect in every ugly flaw. Because the beauty of us is found in our flaws.
Just imagine living in a world where you have to put a filter on your face, with lip filler before you feel perfect enough for someone to receive you, after sitting for 8 hours straight in a classroom where you might be struggling to read or to write perfectly, and standards are held about every single achievement in your life.
Disclaimer - Do not make this think I do not like school, I am simply making the point that I believe kids also need a place where they can freely express themselves without any judgement.
Creative art journalling is just that. IT IS a place where you can go into your brain put pens, and paint on paper and not give a flying toot about putting a pretty filter over the top. The majority of my creative expressive artwork is so incredibly ugly, like really messy complete brown muck! And I am a perfectionist artist in the work I sell.
But the whole entire point of it, is it is meant to be a space where you can 'feel' and 'express' yourself without a SINGLE OUNCE of judgement. And that is so hard in a life where everything has set us completely unattainable standards of perfection.
It is a huge journey for me, and really hard to share to be honest as most the time I just want to scream hey look this lesson might look ugly but this isn't how I really paint!
But ugh that is completely defeating the point and essentially also my biggest lesson in creating ART CRATE.
It is mean to be the space in which there is no judgement.
The very first thing I say to kids when they are taking lessons with me is doodle something in black ink on a sheet of paper and make it ANYTHING you want.
I mean there are 100% no restrictions on what you put on that page. If you want to swear...SWEAR. If you want to put down on paper how much someone has made your day, your life, your moments FARKING HARD then you write that down, and write it down and write it down again and again and use different fonts or shapes, or emotions until you absolutely have got that out of your system, and then you go back to those pages and you see what you find.
It might just be a line, or a contour, or a verse, or an idea or an inspiration, but there will always be something found in the art of creatively journalling. And it can ONLY be found in the moments when you remove any single restriction in your life, because that is the exact moment you allow yourself to be completely vulnerable, and address ALL of you.
And that my friends is why me, the designer, and marketer who strives for every single post to be pretty and perfect - really truly believes that social media has so much to answer for.
So in a world of social media - Creatively express yourself in a journal for the moments when you simply don't have it in you to feel perfect. You might just find on those pages the depths of who you truly are, and what makes you wonderfully and perfectly imperfect.
THE POWER OF THE DOODLE
DOODLING EXERCISE
Try this
Try this little exercise tonight.
Get off your phone ...I know its hard I find it hard too.
But get off your phone.
Find a quiet space and grab a black ink pen and your journal or a piece of paper.
Be still and then just start drawing or writing the first thing that comes to your mind. A shitty part of your day, something you want to get off your chest. A beautiful part of your day. And if you can't think of anything which is near impossible then just start drawing shapes.
Draw them over and over, or get all the parts of yourself that you can think of onto the page.
Listen to your breath.
Draw like there is no one watching and like you absolutely have nothing to prove.
Draw line after line over itself until you feel like you have reached down and got some emotions out onto the page.
Once you are finished put that notebook or piece of paper away and come back to it in an hour and take a look at the page.
See if there is anything there which you like, or if it made you feel a little less stressed or a little more understood.
That's your perfectly imperfect journal for today.
I hope that helps.
MY CLASS PICKS
ART JOURNALLING EMOTIONS OF THE DAY
#emotions #art #artjournalling