Art therapy - share your work here

[Changing4Best]

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Nowhere to run
nowhere to hide
nothing to do
God's by my side.

sk

 

[Deleted member 8714]

Writing novels is my first love. I use writing for fun and for allowing memories to come forth.
Then comes baking with whole wheat products.
A tie with second is creating and recreating websites.
Another tie for second is making creative meals with my limited menu items. (Allergic to so many foods.)
Next is artwork using colored pencils and/or watercolor pencils.

I got in trouble on here for having a link to my website. So I won't share any pictures with you that way. Hint: Look on my profile page for my URL. Can I say that without getting in trouble again? Who knows?

 

[Changing4Best]

I will check it out, thanks for the info. It sounds like you have a great bunch of therapeutic things going on. Cudos to you! @Congruency

I find writing a lot to be helpful too, but I do most of my writing on this forum and in emails. I sometimes even write an email to myself, save it for a few days and then delete it, once whatever has been going on is no longer relevant. I also write emails to others sometimes, save them for a few days as I "perfect" them (not perfectionism, just fully saying what I want to say). Then, when I am done writing these, I delete them too.

I do have journals also, and I do write in those sometimes too, if my computer is off or I just feel that I need to write with pen and paper. I also write letters to God this way. The computer just does not seem like the place to do that, and besides, how would I send it to Him? LOL...

 

[Deleted member 8714]

....I need to write with pen and paper.

For writers it is said that if you want to get to the emotional level then use pen and paper. It bypasses the critic and goes straight to the heart level. If I get stuck writing a novel, I use longhand and that does the trick. Sometimes I enjoy writing longhand for the feel of a pen on paper. It took me many years to find a pen that I like and it's in my favorite color purple and it's very inexpensive. I can easily write up to 5000 words in a day at times so I go through lots of ink. My husband bought me loads of these pens knowing how much I like them.

 

[Changing4Best]

AH, that is good to know. I think I shall get my journal out later today. I have an errand to run first....

One thing I did want to say about my blanket I am crocheting. It is almost as wide as my twin sized bed now! And I have used 4 skeins of yarn on it now too. Crocheting is so calming.

 

[Lost Marbles]

I may share some of my old poetry at a later date, but currently my creativity has been in musical compositions and I do not have enough points yet to be able to share any at this time. hopefully soon.

 

[Deleted member 8714]

Having been told by my art teacher in grade five that I had no talent and nothing intrinsic to draw from

@Mal Content ,
I was told nearly the same thing about my writing while in a creative writing class in junior high school. The teacher basically announced it to my whole class that my writing was too dark and that I'd never amount to anything as a writer.

An assignment later and the teacher had to eat crow. She gave us a writing project that was right up my alley; dark as they come. I had to create a different ending to an Edgar Allen Poe story. And boy did I ever write something dark. My writing was dark because I wrote about the horrible things which happened to me as a child and what I saw and incorporated that into her assignment. I received the highest grade she had ever given any student in her 30 years of teaching experience. She had never given an A+/A+. Always something less than that. She essentially could not find a thing wrong with my piece and told me so in front of the entire class. So much for never having success writing something dark.

I'm writing a novel, third and final rewrite, about what happened to me in a removed way, changing characters and genders and much more. So not quite an autobiographical novel. I've done my research and it doesn't quite fit that genre and that's good because I'd rather it be a thriller. Though to be certain my childhood trauma would read like a thriller.

I also draw in colored pencils and watercolor pencils, design websites, and design/remodel rooms in homes. And I love to bake and cook, creating new recipes. If you want to see my work it is posted on my URL which is on my profile page. I cannot show the link here in this post.

 

[Teasel]

I've felt mostly unable to be creative for years. Am very avoidant of it, frightened almost. There's a huge block...

Read somewhere yesterday something about a link between mental health and feeling able to be creative. Wish I could remember what it said.

I hope to be able to be creative again one day.

I have been able to dip my toe in a tiny little bit recently....

 

[Lost Marbles]

Read somewhere yesterday something about a link between mental health and feeling able to be creative

I have always felt that my pain, my inability to fully understand my emotions and express them, has acted as a muse, my driving force to be creative. As mentioned above by a couple of others, my work tends to be a bit dark, that's what I know and understand.

 

[Teasel]

I can totally see how that would work @Lost Marbles :-)

The thing I read was talking about when you find creativity drying up in connection to mental health issues.

But I can see how it works differently for you

 

[Changing4Best]

I've felt mostly unable to be creative for years. Am very avoidant of it, frightened almost. There's...

I'm back to doing art and crafts too, after many years of not doing much. One of the main reasons was that these old arthritic hands could not do what they once did, and I was disappointed in what I did so much that I stopped. Now I realize that was a huge mistake. If only I could have let go of my perfectionism and done the art for therapeutic reasons, but I just didn't think of that until my most recent hospital visit. (Mental).

 

[Deleted member 8714]

If only I could have let go of my perfectionism

In the past that has been an issue with my writing for novels which were for fun and an emotional release. Until I realized that every writer has those exact feelings. That's how a writer improves on their next work. My difficulty was trying to get one work to be perfect. Impossible. Especially when I read accomplished writers and found errors in their books. It comes with the territory of being a writer to not be perfect and get out of perfectionism. It's taken me years to get to a place to except this.