How Does This Piece of Art Make You Feel How Does This Piece of Art Make You Feel

Artists are primarily thought of as makers. And yes, of course we make stuff. But nosotros are also thinkers and feelers. We think. And nosotros feel. Securely. And I believe the thinking and feeling are the most important parts of an artist. More important than the making. Considering our thinking and feeling is what spurs the making and leads to what we make.

That'south why I write these essays and that'due south why I draw in my sketchbook. I have all these thoughts and feelings swirling around in my listen, constantly bumping into each other and trying to connect with other things. It can be overwhelming if we don't have an outlet for all those thoughts and feelings.

Seeing Our Thoughts + Feelings

Ofttimes, every bit artists, our thinking tin run over the other aspects of being man; actually, it can run over all the other aspects of being human. It tin run over the being function. We can get so focused on doing, on making, on thinking, that nosotros lose our awareness of what'due south going on. I've realized now that art (for me, and maybe for y'all), is the key to becoming enlightened.

Making fine art isn't a direct way to change our thinking or alter ourselves. Art is a way of seeing ourselves. A way of seeing our inner world—our thoughts and behavior, our feelings and emotions, our loves and aversions. Through making art nosotros can learn about our inner world.

Sometimes we'll discover mundane or silly thoughts like, 'hey, mushrooms are interesting'. Other times we'll discover something profound, similar idea patterns within us that nosotros never knew were there. Sometimes those thought patterns are destructive, narrow-minded, and so habitual that we were unaware of them for years. Art can illuminate this inner side of us, and brand us more enlightened of ourselves.

Turning Thoughts + Feelings into Art

The thoughts and feelings in our minds are constantly flowing and surging. Information technology can be exhausting, and sometimes we get swept away. Just making fine art allows the states to stand, even for a brief moment, in the center of that river and see what's flowing around us.

And that seeing is cardinal. If we're able to meet these inner thought patterns, they tin brainstorm to alter. We tin can weed out destructive behavior and habits to bring in more credence and love. Nosotros can see our thoughts equally just thoughts, and we tin apply those feelings to make fine art, instead of assuasive them to set up campsite in our brains and accept over.

Drawing each 24-hour interval, looking into ourselves each solar day, we tin see those parts within we may take otherwise not noticed. Nosotros tin can get familiar with how our mind works and how our hands create from information technology. And this process leads to satisfaction in our art and more than acceptance and confidence in ourselves.

A Existent Life Case

Yesterday, I went through this entire procedure, unknowingly and possibly unwillingly. I had been feeling off all twenty-four hours but didn't actually realize it. I was simply floating through my twenty-four hours in a general state of "meh". I tried to break out of the funk: I took a nap, went on a walk, ate a snack… nothing worked. The funk was however in that location. It was one of those times when you just don't want to exercise anything—non even draw. The only affair I could put my finger on was that I felt "meh", and cypher more specific than that. I was floating in a river of thoughts and feelings merely completely unaware of what I was thinking or why I was feeling this way.

So, not wanting to do annihilation else, I sat down to describe. The theme for #MightCouldDrawToday this calendar week, called this morning by me, is Villains. That choice should take given me a niggling clue to how I was feeling that day, simply ya know… unaware. So I sat downwards on the couch with my Posca markers and sketchbooks, and within a few minutes of considering what to depict, information technology came to me—Cruella De Vil. Something about that grapheme clicked and I instantly went from not wanting to draw at all, to a deep desire to draw this graphic symbol.

And so, for the adjacent expert while, I lost myself in cartoon. I dropped out of the outer world and dropped into my sketchbook.

As I was drawing Cruella's facial expression, it dawned on me. This is how I feel. I feel similar Cruella de Vil right now. And not just any Cruella de Vil, because there are many sides of every villain—I feel like THIS one. This one that I just drew. And of a sudden, it was every bit if I had seen what was within me. All the vague feelings of "meh" and the thoughts swirling so fast I couldn't catch them… everything came into focus.

I now had an sensation of how I was really feeling in that moment.

To exist clear, fine art isn't magic. My Cruella mood didn't immediately transform into happy-puppy-mood simply because I became aware of it. Awareness doesn't solve all our problems unfortunately. But the drawing gave me a breather from the rush of thoughts and feelings, a moment of clarity, and a step in the right direction. Like people speak almost meditation, I believe experiencing awareness of our thoughts over and over tin can lead to big changes, both in our fine art and in our lives.

Try information technology Yourself

The next fourth dimension you experience down, discouraged, or "meh", try using art to look inside. Take some fourth dimension to draw your thoughts and feelings, if just for a few minutes. Don't go in with expectations of a revelation and don't estimate your cartoon as it goes along. Maybe you'll realize something profound, and maybe you'll just realize you lot're grumpy.

Any it is, but draw. And let it all come up out just the style it is.

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