Meditative Drawing

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way- things I had no words for." -Georgia O'Keffe

Crayons

This segment of Adventures in the Arts is about a project over the course of five months or so where I created and led a workshop at the Art and Spirituality Center at Mercy Hospital of Bakersfield.

In my Advnetures I like very much to keep busy exploring new avenues. I was in between projects looking for something different to do. I was given an opportunity by Donnel Lester, local poet and art enthusiast, to create a workshop of my own for the Art for Healing program at the Art and Spirituality Center.

But let me rewind a bit. I met Donnel through and art group, The Foundry, of which we were both members. Donnel and I had also happened to be working with a political activist group. He offered a program of facilitator training to the group, chich I attended. It gave me tools I would need to manage a process for whatever a group is doing in a meeting.

A facilitator presents the content, keeps track of time and guides the group through work or discussion.

My first experience of Art for Healing was when I attended a poetry reading group, which happened to be led by Donnel. I enjoyed the easygoing nature/ calmness and freedom of expression that was available in the session I attended. It was refreshing.

Metaphors, by Sylvia Plath

The Art & Spirituality Center  provides opportunities for art-making, laughter, music, and other creative experiences free of charge with the hope that each participant may become practiced in the skills of letting go, living in the moment, artful reflection and relaxation.

(Other workshops at the center include Laughter Yoga, A tiem to write, and open studio)

The content of the workshop had to be something that would heal emotionally, spiritually or physically. I remembered all thsoe times when drawing or scribbling when I didn't have words for what was happening. Doodles worked too. Normally I draw as quickly as possible, but I suppose sometimes I don't keep track of time. Drawing as a response to a feeling, situation or emotion was soothing to me.

  

Quick Coloring

There were a few words I bounced around and landed on the name Meditative Drawing. Meditation is the practice of focusing on a subject in order to relieve stress and strive for growth. In this workshop we reflected using drawings we made there.

The center already has many supplies that have been donated for their programs and open studio days. With that in mind I decided to use crayons and paper because I fell crayons are nonthreatening and relitively inexpensive. Of the many supplies they had, the closest thing to crayons available was colored pencils and pens with twist-albe crayon cores. Those were cool. For the First workshop Donnel supplied regular crayons. For the second one I gor more crayons to make sure we wouldn't run out. Always be prepared.

Crayons

Oncemy plan was more thought out Donnel and I asked a small group of people who would be interested in teh subject to gather for a trial run. The First one was at the end of July. I was nervous, so the intro and warm up were short (I was informed of this by the reviews). The tables were prepared with a box of crayons, and paper for each space to make our area look inviting.

Even though I prepared by writing out what I was going to say and hou to say it, I hadn't figured out how much time each topic would need. I made that up as I went. I was worried we wouldn't have enough topics for the time we had. I tried to let each topic take what seemed to me like a long time. It turned out to be juse enough. I even had to skip one for time.

The short break in the middle I planned gve me time to breathe. Topics used in the first session were "Introspective/Yourself," "The Nothing" and "Thriving"

"Yourself"

The second trial, in August, advertised online for  month and open to the public. It was easier. Topics I used in the second trial were "The Nothing," "Dream" and "Emotion/Feeling"

"The Nothing"

This project was so different from anything I have done before. It was such a rewarding experience. With the summer ending and resuming as a full time student at CSUB, I was unable to commit to schedueling another workshop. This might come back in the future; sometime, somewhere. It will be easier now that I've got the hang of it.

Beginnings

Part One: Greatest Hits

Classes at the good ol' university have started up again. I have SO MUCH homework due tomorrow for other classes, but I thought I'd take a break to write a blog (don't worry I have hours and hours to do my other homework). An assignment for one of the better art classes was to write about my first memorable experience with art. My response was short (only a paragraph) but I thought it would be a good idea to think about it some more and share here, because I love my readers so much (or the people who pretend to read and only look at the pictures. I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!) I am calling this my greatest hits because there were many more art experiences as a child, but for the sake of the blog (and my homework time) I kept this relitively short.

Elementary Happenings:

One of my first experiences with other people's art I remember is from reading the children's book Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. The illustrations were done in watercolor, emphasis on the color. It depicted a fish who's scales were blue, purple, green and shiny colors. The fish gave away all his shiny scales so everyone could be a little shiny; a little special. This and other children's books, including but not limited to Whinnie the Pooh, and Dr. Seuss's One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, are things I remember drawing from. I also drew characters from cartoons and comics from the newspaper. I was not short of crayons and pencils. I remember drawing the scales of that fish; So many scales. (Half circle. half circle. half circle...)

Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

Once in elementary school we were drawing trees for some reason. There were a few trees on my paper. I decided to color the trunk of one blue. If I recall correctly, the teacher told us to do whatever we want; I have since learned that that is never the case. Ms. C, we'll call her, found this completely unacceptable. She scolded me asking if I had ever seen a blue tree. I, being incredibly shy at the time, didn't have the time to answer that I had seen one on TV. She finished her own sentence, "NO, THERE ARE NO BLUE TREES." That one sure stuck.

In the fifth grade my class was drawing flowers. We used something like conte crayon or colored charcoal; I don't remember, I was a kid at the time! What I do remember is the stuff was smearable and it got all over my hands. I first drew the flower in pencil from whatever we were drawing from. The class only had a certain amount of time, and some didn't get to color theirs. I colored mine pink with yellow dots for the middle. Only one flower was required, but I decided to make one and a half, because I thought it looked better. I noticed that the chalk or charcoal, maybe it was pastel, smeared, so I went with it and made smeared on purpose to color the whole thing. Then I wrote 'alex' in purple at the bottom of the paper in cursive, because I had just learned it, with two underlines beneath it. I gave that drawing to one of my aunts. She liked it enough to matt and frame it. [she has since passed away, so now the picture resides in my studio]

Elementary School Flowers

Art Classes:

I was reluctant to take art classes, and still am, because I thought or think I know what I’m doing. Seinor year in High School, when I finally gave in, I took an art class. One previous teacher had left so I got a brand new teacher (another thing I experienced often). In Ms. N's or Ms. T's class, she changed her name while I was there, I sort of learned how to mix colors of paint. The whole class she complained about how she had no good examples from students of the assignments because the ones who did well took home their projects. At the end of class, I, being either arrogant enough or considerate enough, gave her all my assignments. I wasn't going to use it anyway because I decided I would be an artist. I saw her more recently and she was grateful for the work I left behind.

For some reason I thought it was a good idea to take a painting class at the craft store during the winter after high school, because I wasn't doing anything at the time. I was still reluctant about it because I had fiddled around with paints on my own and thought what I made was fan-tastic, even though in retrospect it wasn’t that great. The woman who usually taught that class had left to teach at a better place (or to live on a nice farm somewhere), so they had an old man come to teach the class. He was a landscape artist. The class was simply titled oil painting. I painted generic landscape over three hour long classes. From that class I got a vast knowledge of how to paint clouds.

Also, I didn't learn how to build canvasses until college. . . That's another story, so this is all you get, for now.

Part Two: Painting

Thinking about the beginning is the easy part. This already happened and I know the outcome of this period of time. It’s the here and now that gets more complex. Here is the abridged version of my beginnings of painting.

The year was 2007 and it was the summer after high school. I had only had a quarter's worth of general art lessons in high school and I decided to try my hand at making paintings of in my very own way. I had been told how colors mixed but didn't care to remember. I purchased a set of acrylic craft paint, a standard set of numbered paintbrushes, and a package of three canvass boards to work on. I even had my very own apron made of what seemed to be canvass.

In the sunshine of my backyard, I mixed colors out of the primaries: red, yellow, blue, black and white. I painted things I wasn't able to try in high school with as much paint as I wanted. I gave myself as much space as possible covering the table I was using with newspaper. I didn't have an easel because they were expensive (but that's another blog) so I either painted flat or held the canvass in my hands. This was a delightfully messy process.

Cat Painting 2007

I favored the thicker brushes over the small ones and ended up sticking to two or three at a time. The great thing about it was I didn't have to paint for anyone. There were no assignments to paint flowers. I could make things abstract. They didn’t have to stand for anything. Looking back, I would consider paintings like this a beautiful stutter before learning to speak. (Abstracts can be greater than what I started with, but these days I’m learning a language of color and figures and forms. Maybe one day I can go back to abstraction, but not now.)

I worked on this surgery painting from sun up to sun down one summer day, then for a few more hours with the porch light on. It was based on a dream I had. I was going completely off memory/imagination. I didn't know much about faces at the time. Nobody wanted to sit for me to draw them, so I generally avoided faces. I worked on how the light should have come from the source, shown in the painting. It was a clown doctor with green hair. I modeled his hand after my own and his lamp after my own and imagined the light. I used odd colors to indicate that it was MY painting. (If you’re into having things the color they really are, that’s your business, not mine.) I am glad I worked so hard on it, my first “study” and am even gladder I kept the darn thing long. I get a kick out of looking at it now. Studies are important, you know.

Dream 2007

After that I had decided to paint on anything and everything. I painted on Christmas wrapping paper. I painted on cardboard. Real canvass was scarce because I didn't have the cash for it and I had no idea how to make it myself. I painted with my fingers, mixing directly on the surface I was using. I came up with so many colors and didn't care exactly how I got them. Everything was by chance. Everything was intuition. Everything was a delightful mess. (I have since learned reasons for things and am working on the cleanliness part as well, although there’s nothing like paint on your hands.)

Oriental Sunset 2007

It was a great feeling. No one else I knew could or wanted to pick up a paintbrush. No one else I knew could create. Sure, there were people in my life who used to make art; people who used to draw but didn't anymore. (My Dad even drew a bit in college, although I don't recall him drawing much in my lifetime. Let’s not speculate on that.) There are plenty of legitimate reasons artists have to stop creating. I have no intention to stop.

For me, painting was freedom and I loved it. I still do. These days I live and breathe art. I wake up to it every morning and yell at it to leave me alone at night so I can sleep. Back then it was hobby-like, but its importance grew. I’m so glad it did. Of course I wasn’t thinking of that when I started, it was just for fun back then.