“In
spite of everything, I shall rise again; I will take up my pencil, which I have
forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.”
―
―
Even
cavemen knew how to draw. We have known
how to draw since the beginning of time.
Drawing is another kind of language.
Sometimes we simply cannot find the words to write what we desire to
write. Sometimes it is so much easier to
simply express it through drawing, color, shapes, textures, etc. At about the age of eight, we stop drawing
fashion dolls and clothes, stop drawing things we think are childish and some
of us never pick up that pencil to draw again.
I
know that I stopped trying to do art when my teacher (my mother) asked me why I
had to color so hard when Shirley's was soft and gentle like a newly hatched
chick should be. Funny how a side
comment like that simply had me disengage for so long. I thought she did not like me coloring hard
and since I could not color without brilliant colors, I thought one should not
be colorful at anything. I so wanted to
please her.
Some
of us have to be a kid again and just scratch color and shapes on to a blank
page. A set of kid's pencil crayons,
watercolor pens, kid's watercolors, wax crayons, glue, magazines to clip art
from, using those coloring books for adults, whatever it takes to get you
scribbling again will only help you dig deeper in your expression s in a
journal.
Your
brain needs you to spend some quiet time in order to really draw or color. Your left side of your brain wants to
organize, color between the lines, draw as perfect as you see. Your Ego/Evil Inner Witch wants you to
conform and not to do anything towards expressing your deepest thoughts. They will keep you from even trying
this. They are on the side of keeping
you in control. The right side of the
brain, where you dream, create, story tell, and all things creative, knows what
you soul/heart wants to say but you may have been cajoled by your left brain
into thinking you had to be perfectly perfect in everything or not try at
all.
What
do you get lost in? Do you crochet,
knit, garden, sew, read good books? You
know that feeling of having time get lost in what you were doing? Well, that is right brain space; a place of peace, a place of prayer, a place
of gentle space. I always feel like I
get lost in time when I am creating. I
am not a great drawer and am glad I got past knowing shapes of faces and
shadows and etc so I can break all the rules...lol.. yes, a rule-breaker I,
imagine that! lol.
Journaling
is a place you can get lost in, for a few minutes of peace, or snippets of time
during a busy day, or in the evening before bed, or in the morning when you
first wake up.
Soon
your pencil ( I use those clicker pencils you get like 50 in a package from
Walmart - I get the white erasure ended ones because it does not leave marks
when you erase) But...try NOT to
erase. You know shapes; just draw shapes
for a while. Get completely focused and
lost for a few minutes. If we wanted
perfection we would have the real thing.
Eventually, when you really relax, say with a cup of chai or a cup of
coffee, or a glass of wine, or, in my case, a diet Pepsi, you enter a space of
quiet with only your hand busy shaping, coloring, whatever. Eventually you will feel your Muse, your
soul, your inner being releasing. It is
a pure high, truly. Soon, you learn to
quieten that Ego/ Evil Inner Witch that will tell you everything negative it
can think of to tell you. Just keep
going; coloring, drawing, doodling, scribing.
A sense of serenity overcomes you.
You start coloring out of the lines.
A sense of timelessness comes over you.
You become engrossed in the process not the final product. This is when you begin to draw from your
heart. You learn to express yourself in
a totally different way. Do not let your
Ego sabotage what can be one of the most rewarding things you can do for
yourself.
What
takes the joy out of life, is when your inner critic (yes, Ego/Evil Inner
Witch) starts telling you you cannot do this, it is dumb, it is...whatever
negative thing you have ever heard anyone say... and poof, the joy is gone
because you are trying to be perfect rather than being perfectly you. If you
allow them the control, you will never find the beautiful release that journaling
can give you.
In
fact, you can cut pictures out of magazines, shapes out of colored pages of
magazine. You can print off some face
shapes, for instance and simply color them.
Then color curvy shapes across your page, arrange some cut-out shapes
different ways on the page, then glue the face shapes onto your page. You hardly need to draw at all.
Try
this:
What
mood are you in right now? Today? What color is your mood, what shape? What objects can you find in a magazine that
speak to the mood you are in. Glue them
on the page. Now doodle with a pen or
crayon or whatever. Write in some blank
areas of your page, about your mood. It
might be one word. You might add
curlicues or write a word in different sized letters... anything goes. It is your page, not anyone else's. Give it a go.
©Carol
Desjarlais 8.23.19
references:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kKJW8ZLcew&t=359s
https://www.google.com/search?q=expressing+mood+in+art+journaling&client=firefox-b-d&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiRiYLymYvkAhXSJzQIHbiNDbkQ_AUIESgB&biw=1536&bih=730
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