Kickstart Your Art For Self-Care Practice

1. Introduction: How do you listen to your intuition? How can you listen to what your inner voice has to say on a day to day basis when things can feel so uncertain, overwhelming, and even really scary sometimes? How do we take good care of ourselves through all the stress and change and challenges that come our way every single day? And how the heck does art making fit into all of this? Anyway, I'm Jessica Swift. I'm an artist in Portland, Oregon. I started using art making as a way to untangle my inner world in a dark time After my husband died in 2018, this process became my lifeline, teaching me to tap into my inner guidance whenever I needed it. It rippled out into every area of my life. I want to share why this journey matters and to show how it can transform not just your art, but your entire life. Also, let's set the stage. Imagine a space where your inner world becomes a canvas and the rich wisdom within you starts bubbling up, just eager to find expression. That's what we're diving into together here. Whether you're working with canvas paper or a digital screen, even this process is uniquely crafted for you. The supplies you use don't matter. Your level of experience doesn't matter. What you create in these five lessons, doesn't even matter. You don't actually even have to be an artist at all to try this out, I know, right? The pressure is totally off during this mini class. I want you to give yourself permission to play, to get curious, to embrace being a beginner, to make mistakes. To allow the unknown, even to create something that you might consider ugly. It's about giving yourself the gift of creative quiet space just for you. I totally understand life gets busy. I'm a solo parent juggling two young kids, running a business, all the things. But I've learned that when I don't give myself the space to tune into my inner self, to do the things that really fill me up, my life suffers. We all have convincing excuses. Past judgments, Self worth doubts, the belief that self care is selfish, that we don't have time. But have you ever wondered what's underneath all of that? Or if any of it is actually even true? We often hear the analogy that you have to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. It's really not just a cliche, It true when you allow yourself to feel good, giving becomes a joy. It flows naturally because you're already filled with it. Let's fill up our cuts together because you matter. Feeling good, calm, peaceful, valued, excited. Even just for a few minutes a day matters. And it makes a difference. It's not just good for you. It ripples out to everyone you meet and beyond. The more you say yes to yourself, the more you give others permission to say yes to themselves. That's a big deal. Let's dive into these five lessons you're going to drop into your inner world. Make contact with your deep wise self. Listen for what it has to share. Simple. There's no pressure on what your artwork looks like. Your inner experience is absolutely what matters the most here. This way of making transformed one piece of art at a time. If you join me in these upcoming lessons, I'll walk you through the process and you'll get to start transforming your life through art making too. Remember, there are no right or wrongs here. You make the rules for you. I cannot wait to see what unfolds in your art making adventure. Let's do this. 2. Tuning In: Before we get started, let's talk a little bit about how to tune into your intervoice. Anyway, if you're unfamiliar with hearing what your intervoice has to say to you, it might take a bit of time to figure out how it best wants to communicate with you. How you tune into your intervoice is a completely personal process. Basically, there are as many different ways to tune in as there are people on the planet. Like we're all going to have our own unique ways of how we get in touch with our inner world. While I do of course have some suggestions, and I'll share those with you in a minute. This is not at all a definitive or exhaustive list of things that you can try. Remember, you make the rules, nobody knows better what's going to work for you than you. If you have something different that you want to try, do it. If you think one of my suggestions isn't going to work for you, skip it. Like there are no rules. There's also not a right way or a wrong way to do this. The pressure is completely off. Like there's no wrong way to do this. Some days you might find that it's really easy to access that inner part of yourself. Other days you're chattering. Monkey mind might do everything that it can to get in your way and block you. That's totally normal. Every day is going to be its own experience. Just do whatever you can to not judge yourself and just stay open to experience whatever your experience is going to be. You might have a way of tuning in that's completely different than anything that I'm suggesting. That's awesome too. Whatever works for you is what works for you. Let's talk about some ways that you could try tuning in. One of the most common ways, of course, is meditation. This is one of my personal favorite ways. I like to do something really simple. I sit with my eyes closed and I take some deep breaths and I picture furling all of the like tentacles of energy that I have out in the world. All of my to do all of the things I'm worried about. All of the conversations I've had today, all of the things, all the ways that my energy is scattered out. I imagine bringing that all back in to right here in my own body. My own energy field being whole in this present moment, right here, right now. Then once I'm in that state of feeling calm, relaxed, present, then I'm able to listen and receive. And that's when the magic starts to happen. Another way that really works well for me is what I call a thinking walk. Which is where I simply set out in my neighborhood with the intention of hearing a message for myself for that day. As I walk, my mind just wanders as I'm looking around at the trees and the sky and whatever the flowers, everything that I happen to see in my neighborhood, I just listen loosely and lightly for something that feels like the right message. For that day, it's hard to describe the feeling that I get, But when I hear the message that the message that's meant for me, in that moment, it feels like almost like a puzzle piece clicking into place. Or it's like something just dropped into my awareness without me having to think about it. Which just now that I think about it makes me realize the term thinking walk is maybe not the best because I'm actually actively trying not to think or not to let my conscious mind think too much while I'm walking. But anyway, that is one of my favorite ways to tune in and hear what my inner voice has to share with me for that day. Some other ways that you could try tuning in, ways that have worked for me with varying degrees of success at different times. Going for a drive, taking a bath or a shower, that works well for me. Sometimes I've had some surprising insights in the shower, doodling. Using your non dominant hand to draw. Drawing with your eyes closed, making repetitive marks, dancing, running, doing yoga. There are so many different ways that you can busy one part of your mind, so you can let that other deeper part of your mind bubble up to the surface and share what it has to share with you as time goes on. And the more you practice, the easier it will become to spiral, spiral into yourself. To hear, to make connection with that inner part of you, to hear what your inner voice has to say, and then to spiral back out into your outward world. Your inner voice is always there to guide you every single moment. No matter what that's true for everybody, all you have to do is pay attention to it. While that sounds really simple, that's not always easy, and I realize that, but it really is that simple through these five days. I just want you to practice tuning into your inner voice in whatever way feels the best to you. You can do the same thing every day. You can try different things, whatever is going to work for you. Just try not to judge yourself, whatever happens. And remember, we're just playing here. So stay open, stay curious for whatever wants to happen for you. And get ready to dive into our first prompt. And I'm so excited to get going. 3. Prompt 1: I Am_______: Okay, my friend, we are diving into prompt number one. This is very exciting and as you can see, I've got my supplies ready. I'm using pretty simple supplies today. I just have my sketchbook. And these markers, these are Tmbo water based dual brush pen markers. They have two sides, a thin tip and a more brushy tip. You can use similar supplies to me today. Or if you want to use something completely different paint, collage colored pencils, canvas, cardboard like whatever you want. Anything goes, you make the rules for you, remember. But this is what I'll be using today. As these five days go on, I will demonstrate some different materials. Also, I'm using markers today, but tomorrow I will use something different. As you can see, I have done some of these drawings before with these same markers. My sketchbook is filled with them. It's fun to look back on the messages that I've given to myself. I'm on the very last page of my sketch book, which is also. Okay, let's dive in. Today's prompt is to fill in the blank blank. I went for a walk earlier today in order to hear my own answer to this message that I will be illustrating here. What I heard was, I am ready. That's what I'll be doing here today. One of my favorite ways to tune in and hear what my inter, voice has to say, which I mentioned before, is to go on what I call a thinking walk. That's what I did and I just walk and let my mind wander and mull over whatever prompt I'm trying to receive an answer to. Or sometimes I don't use a prompt at all and I just wait for something to come. I went for my thinking walk today, and without fail, it worked. As you're tuning in to receive your own answer to this prompt, you might want to do the same thing. You might go for a walk. You might want to take a bath. You might close your eyes and sit quietly, meditate. You might go for a drive or a run or dance. Like there are so many different ways. However, feels best to you to try to tune into yourself and hear what your deep wise, true inner voice has to say to you is great. And remember, just don't take it too seriously. Don't put too much pressure on yourself. If nothing comes, that's okay too, like whatever happens is okay. Just give yourself permission to let whatever happens be okay. Let's dive in. I should talk about colors a little bit. These are the colors that I intuitively chose to use. And I may or may not use all of them as I go. I don't really have a plan here. I tend to stick to colors like a somewhat limited range of colors. My go to color combinations are tend to be pink and orange and green. This is just what I naturally gravitate toward. Colors that are close to those colors or variations of those colors on the color wheel. Always feel pretty easy for me to use. That's what I'll be doing today. When I begin, I just begin and I try to keep my hand moving and I don't know how this is going to look. So this will be as much of a surprise to me as it is to you. I try to just keep going and not overthink it and see what happens. Let's do this. I am ready. Okay. If hand lettering freaks you out, if it feels really hard or scary, or if you have some story that you are bad at it or whatever might be going on in your mind. If this is not something you normally do, why not give it a try If you want to. If you have no interest, you absolutely don't have to make your letters look beautiful. You can just write it quickly. You can write it really small. Your image can focus mostly on images or symbols. It doesn't even have to have the actual words in drawing or in your creation can be wrapped into creation in whatever way feels appropriate to it. Definitely doesn't have to be beautifully illustrated letters. But if that's something that feels fun. To try. Then I invite you and encourage you to try something, even if it might feel scary or new, or unfamiliar. Because sometimes things feel scary, right? Might feel unsafe, it might feel unfamiliar in a way that just really makes you want to run the other direction. And that can also be seen as an invitation to go for it anyway. See what happens, see what's on the other side of that fear. I happen to really like hand lettering and I've been doing it since I was a kid. It probably looked very similar when I was a kid to how it does now. Because it's walk and funky and rudimentary looking in some ways. But that's what I love about it. It's imperfect and it's full of heart, I think. And soul, and personality. It doesn't look like a computer made it. It's mine. It's my hand lettering. It is what it is. Okay. So now it's time to embellish. And again, this is I've been doing basically the same kind of thing since I was a very little kid. And I think that there is something potent and powerful and beautiful about that because little kids are all creative, right? I mean, we are all creative beings in my opinion. My humble opinion, little kids like have you ever walked into a preschool classroom or a preschool art room and seen any child second guessing the things that they're creating? No, they just create. They just in the moment, they're just enjoying the feeling of having a marker in their hand or a paintbrush or finger painting. They're just in the moment, in the process, not judging themselves. And somewhere along the way we lose that. Some of us lose that more than others. But I believe it's still there. That creativity, that joy of making something just because it feels so good to make something doesn't go away. It just gets dampened, it just gets covered up with these beliefs that we start piling on top of that until it sometimes gets so buried that we forget that it's even there, or we believe that it's just gone. But I think that's what this process can really awaken is just the joy of making something because it feels good to make something, not because it has to be a masterpiece. I guarantee you, this will not be a masterpiece, but it will be mine. It's a record of a moment in time that I experienced and something that I wanted to give myself, purely because it feels good. It feels good to just put marks on a page. This is not earth shattering stuff that I'm doing right here, but I get to do, I get to choose to do it. And I feel like that is somewhat earth shattering. That is the radical part of this, is that you get to choose, even if every story in your mind is telling you that you shouldn't. This is silly, this is frivolous, this doesn't matter. I have so many other things to do. While all of that stuff may feel true, you still get to choose to do something that lights you up and makes you feel good. Just because I'm going to continue on just making my little marks. I think tapping into that child like sense of play and fun is really key here. I'm just making lines and dots. This doesn't take a lot of exceptional skill, what I am doing, but This is what I love to do as a kid too. And this helps me remember that. It helps me remember to just let myself play and to let myself be that everything is okay. Everything is okay. All of my to do and problems and all of the things will be waiting for me on the other side of this as well. I can take a few minutes to give to myself to fill up my cup a little bit and carry on with the rest of my day afterwards. I will also mention that your message doesn't have to make sense to anybody except you. While the words I am ready, they're common words. It's something that people say. It's something that means something specific to me, right at this moment in time in my life. This means to me for where I am in my life, in my work, in my family, in all of the things, this is really meaningful to me. But that apparent or it might not be apparent at all what exactly that means on the surface. And that really doesn't matter. That's not the point of this whatsoever. This is just for you. So keep that in mind also, that if your message doesn't necessarily make sense to, like if someone else were to look at, it doesn't matter. Nobody else has to see this unless you want them to. One thing I never can seem to do is center these properly on the page. It's always just a little bit up or down from the center. Just part of the wonkiness of how I create, I guess I'll just choose to see it as charming instead of anything else. Sometimes while you're doing this, you'll potentially make choices that you don't really care for, the way that I just did with these dots. And you can go with it, right? Because that's just like life, right? Things happen, you make mistakes and you just get to keep moving forward and turn your mistakes into something new. Or you get to just look at them as a record of your imperfection. As a human, because we are all imperfect, there's not a perfect person on this planet. There's a lot of permission to be in those moments where you make a that is not your favorite. When you make a piece of artwork that's not your favorite because Lord knows that'll happen also, right? I had a professor in college who used to tell me, you have to be willing to make the bad art in order to get to the good art. I do believe that is absolutely true, right? It's all part of the process of being an artist, of being a person, of being a beginner of all of the things. There's so much permission that we can give ourselves to just be where we are, be who we are, how we are, and let it all be, okay? Okay. I think that this is just about complete. As you can see, this process doesn't need to take very long. I think it's been probably about maybe ten to 12 minutes of drawing here and I have my page filled up. I feel pretty good about how this has turned out. I was going to add more, but you know what? I think that I might stop actually a little bit more. As you practice this, you'll start to have a conversation with what you're creating. And it will just reveal to you what the next step is in what wants to happen on the page or on the canvas or whatever it is. But just remembering to stay loose and light and keeping things moving without getting too stuck in any one step is important in my view. The same professor that I was just mentioning told me another negative wisdom that I've carried with me all of these years. And he said, don't get precious with your work. I really love that because it allows for a lot of freedom and looseness and personality. I think to show up in your work when you're not so worried about everything looking perfect, and instead just letting it be, letting it reveal itself to you as whatever it is that it wants to be. On that note, I'm going to leave this as it is for today. I cannot wait to see what you are going to create. For this prompt, please remember to use the hashtag in the post here as a reminder. And that way I'll be able to see what you make and find what you make and share what you make. And if you don't want to share it at all, that's totally cool too. And I will see you in the next lesson. 4. Prompt 2: I'm Allowed To________: Welcome to lesson two of the kick start your art for self care practice mini class. As you can see, I have some different supplies here today than I did yesterday. I am working with a little wooden cradled panel here, which is basically my favorite thing to paint on. I've tried to be somebody who creates paintings on paper so many times over the years. And for whatever reason, painting on paper is not my jam. But I do absolutely love painting on wood. That's what I'll be using today. Totally welcome to do the same or do whatever feels right for you, whether that's creating on paper, using markers, pens, paint, collage, working digitally. It is all welcome here and you make the rules for you. You can do what I'm doing or not, And it's all totally cool. Let's see, I've got a few different things here. You can see I have some acryla gouache, my trusty prisma color colored pencils that I've been using since I was a kid. My Posca pens, which I also absolutely love, I love this stabilo chalk pencil for outlining things if I need to outline things, all of these supplies are linked down below the video. If you are looking to get your hands on any of this stuff or you just want to know where it is or where to get it, you can find all of that below. We're just going to dive right in. Today's prompt is to complete the sentence. I'm allowed to blank as I was pondering this prompt because I'm doing these exercises right along with all of you. I don't have any canned prompt responses that I'm working with. This is actually, before recording this, I really tuned in and listened for my answer. For this prompt for today, what I heard was I'm allowed to be a beginner and that's very appropriate for me in a lot of different ways these days, that is what I'm going to be working with. If you haven't already, take a few minutes to tune in to your inner voice, Really try to get quiet and hear what it has to share with you. Sometimes the answers might surprise you. Sometimes you might hear something that not make sense in the moment, just doesn't feel right or it's not what you wanted to hear, it's not the message you wanted to receive. But I would just encourage you to trust, trust. Trust, the first thing that comes to you that feels right, and try not to second guess it and just go with it. Even if it doesn't make sense, it may start making sense as you create your artwork today, let's dive in. I do not know what's going to happen for me today. I have no plan, which is normally how I start out a painting or any creation for that matter. I'm just going to go for it. I hope that feels a little bit encouraging and gives you a little bit of permission to also just go for it, because this could turn out terribly. I really don't know what's going to happen, what's going to come out of my hands onto this surface today. But I do know that I'm working with the message. I'm allowed to be a beginner. Let's go, I'm just going to sketch out a few little things just to give myself a little bit of a framework. I think I like painting flowers. That that feels like a fine place to start. We'll see where I go from there. I don't know how well I'll be able to talk my way through this painting. So I'll probably speed up some of the sections and put some music to it just so you're not, you know, watching me paint in silence. Okay, so here we go. It's fun to give you kind of an inside peek into my Process because it's loosey, goosey and intuitive. And I wing it a lot. And I don't start out with a palette in mind or anything, and it's all, I'm just going flying by the seat of my pants. It feels a little bit vulnerable to be letting you watch me paint right now. Because as you can see, I'm just adding paint to my palette as I go. And I am not sure what's going to transpire here, but this is one of my absolute favorite colors. That's always a good place to start something familiar. Something you love as you're working. Try not to judge the marks that you're making, too much staying in the flow and just letting your intuition guide you without letting the ego part of you get in your way, will transform basically every part of your life if you let it, because our egos have a lot to say, right? Like we're judging our lives as we're moving through them all the time. Which can be useful of course, but also in my experience, anyway, it can get in my way. It can hold me back from really authentically or living up to my true potential. Because that ego part of me is just trying to keep me safe. And trying to keep me, as far as art making goes from making something that I don't like, that I don't think looks very good, that I might be embarrassed about because that feels unsafe for whatever reason. But intuitive part of me, the soul part of me just wants to create because it feels good and it doesn't actually matter what it ends up looking like. Do your best to, if you hear something from that scared ego part of you acknowledge that it's there and then tell it that it's safe and it's okay. You're just playing, you're just having fun here and it's all good. I find that making repetitive marks like this is very soothing for me. It really helps me get into the zone, into the creative flow. If there are any certain kinds of marks that you like to make that just feel right, incorporating that into your art making could be a really nice way to just give yourself the gift of inner quiet and inner fulfillment, like meditative to me. To make these repetitive marks. These are all so wet, but what I like to do often is layer paint and colored pencil and these Parkers Posca pens together, I guess they would technically be mixed media pieces. I call them paintings because it's just, it's easy. But once this first layer is dry, I'll start going over some of these pieces, the bigger patches of solid color with some more details. I guess it's looking like my message is probably going to end up just right there in the middle. Maybe small. But we'll see. I'm thinking as I go here. Another way that you can work with these techniques, or with prompts, or just with your inner voice and art making in general, is to have a prompt in mind or to just set an intention for yourself to hear a message that would be useful to you in this moment and just start creating. You don't have to have the message in mind before you begin. Could just as easily be working on this painting and listening to my inner voice while I'm creating and fill in or add a message to this piece whenever I've got it at the end or somewhere in the middle, it might come to me. There are all different kinds of ways, like there are no rules for when to hear the message that you'll be incorporating into your artwork or how you hear it. This is all just an exploratory practice to try to understand and figure out how this process might work best for you. It might the process of creating and painting, or drawing or whatever, might be the thing that allows you to settle down and calm your inner self enough to hear your inner voice. The act of creating might be the meditative practice for you. If you're having trouble tuning in beforehand and hearing something, then you might just give yourself the space to start creating without a message and see appear if something might appear during the creation process. That happens for me. Sometimes I'm not trying to be too precise or exact about anything right now. I really just want to create something colorful that feels, that just feels soothing and satisfying to me right now. Like I mentioned before, this is less about what your images end up looking like and more about the internal experience that you're having. It doesn't really matter if this turns out to be something that I like and that I think is beautiful or just cute or whatever. And I like looking at it, That's just a nice bonus. But the real meat of it, the heart of it, is the message that I heard, which is I'm allowed to be a beginner, which is completely true and it's something that I think as adults we forget that. We just expect ourselves to know how to do things and to be experts right away. And that's just not how things work. I don't know, I don't know when that starts to happen in our grown up minds because children certainly don't think that they need to be experts or need to be super skilled at something in order to be able to do it or to feel good about it. Watching kids make art or watching kids do anything, really, It can be so inspiring. I have two little kids, they don't judge themselves for any of this stuff. They just show up and enjoy the heck out of whatever it is that they're creating. And they just let it be fun. And we can do the same thing. Just do your best to try to let this be fun and fulfilling. Because that's why we make stuff right, is because it's fun when it really comes down to it, it's still a little bit wet in there. Let's see, you might come back in and go over some of this stuff once it's a little more dry. For now, this will do. I also don't want to make this video 100 years long. I'm just trying to quickly, which working quickly also helps you stay out of your head because you can't get too perfect with anything when you're moving quickly. My favorite professor in college used to tell me not to get precious with my work and I remember that all the time to this day. When I'm trying to get too perfect with something and I'm like niggling with it a little too much. I remember don't get precious. Part of the charm of artwork is, are the imperfections being able to see that actual human, an imperfect human made it just let it be messy, let it be imperfect. That's what makes something beautiful. In my opinion, others may think differently, but that's my opinion. Okay. I'm wishing that I would not have made this decision, but that's okay. I'm going to see how I can turn it into something that I like more than this. I'm just going to keep going. Permission granted to make mistakes always and forever. I hope that if you make a creative decision that you are also not thrilled with while making your artwork based on the prompt today that you will remember this moment when I said, I don't love this decision that I made and I'm just going to keep going and see where it leads me and permission granted to make mistakes. Not that it's even a mistake. I shouldn't even say that it's not a mistake. I made a decision that turned out to be one that I'm not loving how it looks. And now I get to see where that leads me. That's all. Mistakes are not mistakes. If you're just playing, it's just an opportunity to continue exploring. That's all. Okay, let's see. Once that middle section that I just painted is dry, I will likely start trying to work my message in there. I like to hand letter things. That's something that I've enjoyed since I was young. I'll probably try to make my letters look fun and interesting because I like that. But you don't have to make your letters look any special way whatsoever if you don't like hand lettering, if you are afraid of it, if it's just not for you, then it's not for you and that's totally fine. You don't even have to include the words of your message into the actual artwork. It can be you could write it on the back or you could express it in some symbol or something like that. Just remember, there are no rules. The way that I am doing things right now is not the way, this is just my way. This is your invitation to discover your way and to make this process your own. It actually works for you. It's something that feels life giving instead of just another way to beat yourself up or be mean to yourself or something else to procrastinate about or something else to compare yourself to other people around. Like that's not the point of this. The point of this is that it's something that's meant to fill your cup. Right? Because so many of us, myself included, are busy. We're busy people with a lot of responsibilities and often a lot of people pulling us in different directions. I'm a mom of two little kids, a single, solo mom. I have a lot on my plate. If this was not something that I enjoyed, I would not do it. Make this something that you enjoy, that you actually look forward to doing for yourself. Because that is ultimately the entire point is to let this be something that's for you, that allows you to strengthen your relationship with yourself and to live your life authentically and to take care of yourself. To take exquisite care of yourself. 20 minutes of art making every day is scientifically proven to change your biology, to enhance your health and your well being. Like 20 minutes, not even making art even. That's just looking at artwork. Also, while this is meant to be fun and not Taken super seriously, it is really serious. This actually can transform your life and your well being if you let it, so it can change your life. That is what I believe. Okay. Are we dry? We are not dry. Okay. I'm going to keep going until that middle section is dry. Again, I am just 100% completely winging this as I go. And I hope that you will give yourself permission to do the same. To just play because you can. Because you deserve it. Because you don't even deserve it for any reason. Just because you're a person, you deserve it. You deserve to feel good. You deserve to have fun. You deserve to make art. If you love to make art, that's it. Okay? Now I'm going to it. I've got my trusty little pencil sharpener, which is not working. All right. Going old school with the Dinky one. Okay. I'm allowed to be a beginner. I can feel that this pencil is not the most stable. Let's see what I can do. Yeah, it's about to break. Okay. Now, once that's dry, I will go in and refine that a bit because that is looking at pretty messy. Which again, totally fine because I'm allowed to be a beginner. I don't paint on camera very often. This is somewhat new to me. I am being brave, doing it. Oh, I just keep messing up that section. I need to leave it alone. I am notoriously impatient when it comes to painting. I have a really hard time waiting for things to dry before going back in and getting to the next next layer. Okay, once this is fully dry, I'll probably go back in and refine those, the middle of the words and things like that. But for now, just for the sake of this video, not getting much longer. I'm going to leave that where it is now. It's your turn. You get to fill in the blank. I'm allowed to whatever that answer is going to be for you. You are of more than welcome to share your work on Instagram, on Facebook, in our private Facebook group. I would absolutely love to see what you're creating. Also, there's no pressure because I know this can be a really personal process, especially if, you know, if you receive a really personal message, which may happen at some point, that's not always something that you want to share. I would love to see what you're working on A if you don't want to share, that's totally cool too. Again, you make the rules for you. But tomorrow we will be working on another prompt and I will be working with another set of different supplies. I will meet you back here in the next lesson. In the meantime, I'll look forward to seeing what you are creating by. 5. Prompt 3: What's True For Me Right Now?: Welcome back to the Kick start your art for self care practice mini class. We are on a lesson three right now. The prompt is to answer the question, what's true for me right now? Before I begin, I just want to talk about this idea of right now or the present moment for just a minute. Because I think it's really important. Because for many of us, myself included, I think that there's not much time actually spent in this present moment, right? Our bodies are here in this present moment, but our minds often thinking about all of the things that we need to do. All the places we need to go, the future, right? Or we're dwelling on the past. We're thinking about regrets or things we wish we would have said or done differently, or all the what ifs and all the different paths we could have taken or whatever it is. Our minds are often spinning out into a lot of different directions. And we're not intentionally spending our time in this moment. When, when you really think about it, this present moment, this now moment is the only thing that's actually real, right? The past doesn't exist anymore. The future doesn't exist yet. All we have always and forever is this now moment right here. I'd like to offer a visualization today that's really useful for me when I'm feeling scattered or I'm having trouble accessing that calm, more centered part of myself, that deeper part of myself underneath my chitter, chattery mind, my monkey mind. It might be helpful for you to. What I want you to do is close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. Imagine all of the thoughts that you're having. All of the worries, all of the places that your energy is going are outside of you. Somewhere outside of your energy field. Your energy, for lack of a better word, is like a tentacle reaching out toward this thing that's outside of you. If you think about all the worries that you have, all the thoughts that you're having, there are probably a lot of tentacles of energy that are reaching in a lot of different directions. I think you can probably imagine that potentially you don't have a lot of energy left inside of you in your energy field because it's going out into all these different scattered directions. You can imagine next is pulling all of those tentacles of energy that are out in the world via your thoughts back into your own energy field. That can happen as quickly or as slowly as you'd like. As long as it takes, as long as it takes. Just imagine pulling all of those tentacles back in until everything is inside of your own body and your own energy field. You feel whole again and you feel calm and you feel centered. You can access the present moment from this place where the past doesn't exist anymore. Future doesn't exist yet. All you have is right now, this now moment. Because that is the only thing that all of us ever really have, is this now moment. This continuously unfolding now moment from that place. That's where I'd like you to think about this prompt. What's true for me right now. See what answer comes from that place. When I was thinking about this for myself. When I was listening, tuning in for this answer to the prompt for myself. I heard choices can change. That feels true for me right now from this now moment. That's what I'm going to be illustrating. As you can see, I am using my ipad today and my Apple pencil and my favorite program called Procreate. Again, just like these last couple of days, I don't know what is going to come out of my hands right now. And we're just going to see what happens. Choices can change is what I'm working with. Let's see, my kiddo was using this the other day. Let's hope he didn't mess with any of the settings too much. Okay, here we go. And I'm just sort of choosing my colors intuitively as I typically do. I may end up liking miss palette and I may not. We'll see. And I'm not going to get too precise at this point. I can go in and refine these letters later. Okay. Clearly that the part where I need to concentrate, the I could not even talk while I was doing that. But the rest of this process, now I just get to decorate it. Basically, your process might be similar to mine, it might be totally different. Just remember that however your artwork is coming out, whatever it looks like is exactly perfectly okay in this moment. Do your best not to judge yourself and just keep going. It's you, it's, it's you cheer. You cheer. You to. So you, this is where I've landed for today. This is my choices can change drawing for today's prompt. Now it's your turn. Use the visualization that I suggested in the beginning of this video if it feels like something that might be helpful to you. If not, if you have your own method, of course do that. Please make this process your own. Do whatever works best for you, use whatever supplies work the best for you. I'm excited to see what you are going to create In the meantime, happy art, making happy tuning, and I will see you soon. 6. Prompt 4: What Would A Best Friend Tell You?: Welcome back to the Kick start your Art for self care practice mini class. We're now on lesson four. And the prompt is to answer the question, what would a best friend tell me? I love this prompt because I feel like it's a really lovely invitation to check in with yourself and the words that you're speaking to yourself and the thoughts that you're thinking about yourself. Because if you're anything like me, might not always be the kindest words or the kindest thoughts. My inner critic can run rampant without me really even noticing it sometimes. And I can be so hard on myself, it's really unhelpful. This is a nice invitation to check in and hear the words and the thoughts that are running through your mind. To ask yourself, is that even true? Is that how I would speak to somebody? Or is that how I would like somebody, a best friend to speak to me? What would a best friend say to me in this circumstance? It certainly wouldn't be this. You can check in with the deep wise, more true, more grounded, more expansive part of yourself that does have something kind to say to you. Your inner voice will always only speak kindly to you. It might be firm sometimes, but it will be, it will never bet you, it will never shame you. It will never talk down to you. It will never try to make you feel bad. Your inner voice, your wise true self that's connected to the source of everything in our universe only wants the best for you. That is the part of you that I want you to try to tap into and listen for the answer to the question. What would a best friend tell you? When I was thinking about my own response to this question, I guess I wasn't thinking about it. I was trying to get underneath my thinking mind and tap into the intuitive like more gut reaction. Part of where the real answers bubble up from what I heard is I love every ounce of you. I thought, well that's funny, because that's probably not true of an actual best friend. I'm sure there are parts of me that an actual best friend in real life probably doesn't love about me, but I can feel that way about myself. Right. That is how the part of me that's connected to everything does feel about me. It does love every ounce of me. That is pretty incredible. That's what I'm going to be illustrating today. I'm going back to my sketchbook and markers, and I have some different markers today that I just got. And my kids have not gotten ahold of these yet. They're in pristine condition. They're called art pop markers, and there's a link to them below the video if you are interested in checking them out. I really like them. They're different than the tombo markers I was using the other day, which have a brush tip. And these have just a thick chisel tip. I'm excited to try these out. And the other side is just a normal pin marker tip. I have not used these before. This is literally the first time that I am going to be using them. That feels a little risky, but we will see what happens. I'm going to go ahead and dive in and start illustrating. I love every ounce of you that feels vulnerable to have this be my message for today. But you got to walk the talk, right? Okay, here we go. When I was a kid, I used to make bubble letter posters for every holiday, every family birthday. I have a lot of siblings, so there was always a birthday around the corner, I guess. Not a lot of siblings. I have four younger siblings. I am the oldest of five. Basically do the same thing now that I did when I was a kid, which I find quite fascinating. I would draw these bubble letter posters and decorate each letter in a different pattern. Now I am a pattern designer. I've just been hand lettering and decorating things since. Those are some of my earliest memories. There's a lot of potency, I think, and power in tapping back into the things that we naturally gravitated toward as kids, the way that we did things as kids, I would make these posters and do most of my creative projects and art making while sitting on the floor. I find that now I don't usually sit on the floor when I'm creating things these days. As a grown up, I have my studio with my different areas for different activities and chairs, and stools and things. But when I do get down, whoops, get down on the floor, it helps me tap back into that primal primitive part of me that loved making stuff as a kid, just for the love of making it, without judging it, without overthinking it, purely because it felt great to make things think about that also, is there a way that you used to do things as a kid that you could try again as an adult that might unleash something for you, that might allow you to let go in a new way or tap into a different part of yourself that you may be holding inside that if you decided to let it out or if you figured out how to let it out, you could feel some incredible freedom from that. Just something to think about. Okay, I love every ounce. Let's see here. These markers are alcohol based. The others that I used the other day were water based, so these are bleeding through in kind of a cool way. I feel a little bit different. It's fun to try new supplies, obviously. It's not that different because they're just markers. But you know, a little bit different. Okay, now we decorate. I find that in this part of the process, for me, this is kind of when I allow the message to really seep in and sink in because I'm not really thinking too much about what I'm doing right now. I'm just sort of intuitively making these, these marks, they're not complicated marks necessarily, just childlike and rudimentary. And I'm not overthinking it too much, we're not overthinking it at all actually. I'm just intuitively choosing shapes and colors. This is a pretty standard go to color combination for me. Some version of orange, pink, and green that always feels familiar and easy and my eye enjoys it. The hardest color for me to use, the hardest colors maybe a blue and purple. Which is funny because I do really love those colors. But I find that they're not as easy for me to use, which maybe means I should use them more. What I love about markers is that you just can't get too precise. I mean, I guess you could, but that's not the way that I like to use them. I feel like it just allows me to make marks and move quickly in a way that I don't always do when I'm painting or working digitally. Yesterday I noticed when I was working on my ipad, I just concentrate in such a different way. It's nearly impossible for me to talk while working on a screen, and I'm not sure why that is. But it's easier for me to talk here while doing this. I think because I'm giving myself permission maybe, to be more imprecise. I'm not really sure, I haven't quite figured that out, but I do like how fast I can move here. Okay, I'm going to call that good for today. Now it's your turn to work your way through this prompt. Using whatever supplies and materials you would like. You can use markers and sketchbook, the way that I did paint, digital collage, anything that you want and I'm super excited to see what you're going to create. Remember, you can always share your work on social media using the hashtag art for self care. And I will see you in the next lesson. 7. Prompt 5: What If________ + Final Thoughts: Hello and welcome back to the Kick start your Art for self care challenge mini class. We're on lesson five, our final lesson of the mini class. I hope as you've made your way through these lessons that it's been really fun and fulfilling in whatever ways you've needed or wanted it to be fulfilling. I hope you've had some success tuning into your inner voice and hearing some messages for yourself, connecting with yourself. I hope what you've heard has been clarifying, comforting, calming, motivating, healing, whatever you've needed to hear. I hope that you've been able to connect with yourself and really give that to yourself. Basically, we'll just diver it into today's prompt, which is to complete the sentence. What if blank. I love this prompt because I feel like it just gives your inner voice a chance to, to play with some uplifting answers to that question. I guess it's not really a question, but you know what I mean? I have historically been a worrier. I've experienced a lot of worry since I was a kid and still do today. I try not to say I am a worrier, but I have experienced worry and some low grade anxiety. This prompt for some reason really just gives my inner voice an opportunity to figure out how to answer this question or fill in this blank in uplifting positive way. When I was checking in with myself to get my answer for the day or to get my message for the day, what I heard was what if everything turns out okay? That's really simple. But lately, this is a vulnerable share, I guess. But I've had a lot of worst case scenarios running through my mind. Again, maybe you can relate to this, but I picture a lot of bad things happening sometimes. This prompt allows me to counteract those types of thoughts that I often have. The catastrophic thinking thoughts that really are, they can feel upsetting in my body. Sometimes just picturing all the terrible things that could happen to my kids and to me, and to my family and to the people I love. This prompt really allows me to consider the possibility, what if everything turns out okay? Because that is always a possibility as well. That's just as much of a possibility as anything. That is what I will be illustrating today. I'm going to go ahead and dive right in. Let's see, make sure I'm on the right pin here. Okay, I think I'll fill in the words toward the end. And I'm just gonna go for it. Please, don't so fast, fast. The sound of me for you flow. Sofa. He sounds from flooiselom eyes. Okay, I think I'm ready to add some words here. What if everything turns out okay? All right. Who? Okay. I think I will call that good for today, which means we are at the end of lesson five, at the end of this mini class, and you have made it through to the end. Congratulations. Well done. I really hope that this mini class has been illuminating and fun and freeing, and that it was everything that you hoped it would be. And more, I hope it's been filled with some magical inner surprises. I'm just really grateful to get to be a small part of your creative journey, your journey into and toward your truest self. It's really meaningful to me that you are here. And I hope that we will connect at some point down the road. And until then, I hope you have a beautiful, wonderful rest of your day, and I will see you soon.