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strengths and weaknesses mindmap (course)

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strengths and weaknesses mindmap (course)

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strengths and weaknesses mindmap (general)

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strengths and weaknesses mindmap (general)

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name of project - the feeling of drowning

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name of project - the feeling of drowning

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The rationale-
•i’ve found my strengths on the course are drawing, printing using ink and the ability to manipulate paint in the way i want to

•my weaknesses on this course contain my health and my attendance which go hand in hand

i want to learn and create further skills in art using printing techniques, specifically using lino

i want to explore the area of my personality which suffers from chronic fatigue, anxiety and possible depression, this is because i think that chronic fatigue isn’t very commonly heard about, and a lot of people struggle with mental health to some extent and i feel like it would be helpful to try and display this in some way

i would like to explore and develop my art so i  can show how my feelings are reality, i want to show others art and how i feel on a day to day basis and what i want to learn

i will evaluate my work by using annotation and evaluation on my padlet and also write a full evaluation of my work at the end of the project. i will ask my peers for help and use primary research in the form of questionnaires to help develop my project and evaluation of this and i will list all the resources i use and do this on my padlet

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wip

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Are We All Anxious Now? - Tate Etc | Tate

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Are We All Anxious Now? – Tate Etc | Tate

i’m going to be honest i struggled so hard trying to read this because it mentions so many things and it’s hard to focus

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Monica Bonvicini's Don't Miss a Sec' 2004, a stainless steel toilet unit inside a two-way mirror cubicle, installed in front of City Hall, Rotterdam, as part of IBC Rotterdam/Sculpture International, 2007
© Monica Bonvicini and VG-Bild Kunst, photo: Jannes Linders

Monica Bonvicini's Don't Miss A Sec' 2004 consists of a functioning toilet inside a glass box, giving users an uninterrupted 360-degree view of the surroundings. The view is one-way, the pleasure one of covert surveillance rather than exposure. Apparently inspired by people's reluctance to leave a gallery function for fear of missing out (later known as FOMO), Don't Miss A Sec' belongs to the dawning age of 24/7 connectivity - a period shaped both by the aftermath of 9/11 and an era of openness forged in the socially liberal 1990s, when the West perceived itself to be free from struggle and antagonism, as cultural theorist Renata Salecl observes in 2004's On Anxiety.

War and conflict in the 1990s seemed comfortably remote and non-disruptive for much of Western society. There were few limits to self-creation, whether through the 'just do it' ethos of consumerism, or the culture of self-enhancement. As the text in the catalogue for the 1992 exhibition Post Human at the Deste Foundation in Athens claimed: 'The matter-of-fact acceptance of one's "natural" looks and one's "natural" personality is being replaced by a growing sense that it is normal to reinvent oneself.' Lingering anxieties were confronted in galleries that exposed what might once have been horrifying: the insides of animal and human bodies (Damien Hirst, Marc Quinn et al) and/or more personal revelations (Tracey Emin's Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 1995). By such logic, 1997's Sensation exhibition at the Royal Academy might have left us in a better place, like a cultural course of aversion therapy. But if it did so, the ideology of exposure has given rise to new forms of anxiety.

In the 2010s the psychological cost of total visibility is under scrutiny, as seen in a number of recent books and artworks. Take Hito Steyerl's How Not to Be Seen 2013, which affects the tone of an instructional video with a computer-generated voiceover informing viewers how to remain invisible in an age of image proliferation (the best advice being to remain no larger than the size of a single pixel). Or Dave Eggers's 2013 novel The Circle, in which he satirises the totalitarian consequences of a Google-inspired technocracy that peddles the ideal of sharing one's entire life by 'going transparent'. And Amalia Ulman's Excellences & Perfections 2014-5, which takes the form of Instagram posts delivered to her tens of thousands of followers. Ulman's online performance of body angst, break- ups, bad eatin', bad thoughts and a boob job appears initially to chronicle the real emotional life of an aspirational cute girl until a final post reveals its artifice. Exposed throughout to a real-time social media commentary, it turns the 1990s explorations of identity construction by Cindy Sherman and Orlan into a far more anxious affair.

Hito Steyerl, still from How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File 2013, HD video, single screen in architectural environment, 15 minutes, 52 seconds
© Hito Steyerl, courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

While social media amplifies anxieties in a public forum, giving rise to new forms of anxiety and antagonistic behaviour (FOMO, cyber-bullying, the initially fictional condition of video-physiognomic- dysphoria (VPD) or aversion to one's online video image), and feeds new obsessions and related art forms, the concept of anxiety has been with us for centuries.

Unlike fear, which is a biological 'fight or flight' response to a present threat, anxiety is 'fear without a definite object', as the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard established in 1844's The Concept of Anxiety. Fear subsides when an external threat is no longer present, while anxiety festers internally but may latch on to objects in its path.

In a media age, this makes anxiety a powerful political vehicle, as revealed in creative documentary work after 9/11. Films such as Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine 2002 and Adam Curtis's The Power of Nightmares 2004 and Bitter Lake 2015 investigate the production of scapegoats, demonstrating how anxiety is stoked and redirected through media imagery that gives solid form to the concept of invisible threat. The political imagery of the so-called 'war on terror' thereby functioned to close a loop; much as advertising creates an anxiety relievable by purchase, the hidden threat sells a particular form of solution.

In existential philosophy, anxiety is linked to the very process of self-creation. It arises not from constraint in the first instance, but from what Kierkegaard called 'the dizziness of freedom' - the simultaneously exhilarating and horrifying realisation that destiny is, to a greater or lesser extent, in one's own hands. Historically, the rise of anxiety (as distinct from sheer misery) occurs in conditions of change and upheaval. In 1950's The Meaning of Anxiety, the existential psychologist Rollo May linked this rise to mass migration in a period when many people left small towns and communities to find work in post-war cities. At the individual level, migration represents a literal and conceptual shift away from the world of certainties. Anxiety is the price of psychological autonomy; we feel 'alive but alone', says a character in WH Auden's zeitgeist- naming poem The Age of Anxiety from 1948.

Instagram post made on 1 June 2014 as part of Amalia Ulman's Excellences & Perfections 2014-15
Courtesy the artist and Arcadia Missa

Instagram post made on 5 September 2014 as part of Amalia Ulman's Excellences & Perfections 2014-15
Courtesy the artist and Arcadia Missa

It is this post-war age that May identifies as the point at which anxiety becomes overt - not only because it was a time of upheaval and hardship, but because the social structures that had impeded anxiety's explicit expression began to break down. The struggle against traditional constraints was extensively manifested in the rise of youth subcultures from the mid-20th century. New identities were forged in a spirit of resistance towards conventional values, from the 1960s countercultural movement to the punk era of the 1970s. Subcultures did not disappear by the 1990s, but they were no longer odd minorities. Consumerism effectively embraced the postmodern idea that personal identity was a purchasing choice. And now, two decades later, body art and various means of body modification are well established in the mainstream.

As a consequence, to quote the title of a brilliant manifesto-style essay by the Institute for Precarious Consciousness, We Are All Very Anxious. Anxiety is now the dominant emotional experience of our time, precisely for this reason: anything and everything is on show, for sale and attainable, but (for too many people) perpetually withheld, out of reach. Whereas historically people were condemned to misery or boredom, anxiety becomes pervasive in conditions where free choice is unfettered, and yet at some level illusory.

Art is indispensable to exposing such illusion and the exclusions it perpetuates. Art can inhabit spaces that may be off-limits, as Bonvicini recently noted: 'You are allowed to do anything as an artist, you can be blind, crazy, or dead serious... the question is really: can you ever expand the boundaries? Who defines them? Who determines them? Where are they actually?'

These fundamental questions open up the politics of lived psychological experience. If anxiety is intensified through a confluence of social, economic, technological and material forces, the question of boundary does not pertain to what and where an artist can be, but to the larger concern of how we shape and designate social spaces and accommodate or marginalise people within them.

Richard Bell, Great Scott! 2014, acrylic paint on linen, 150 x 150 cm
Courtesy the artist and Milani Gallery, Brisbane, photo: Carl Warner

Anxiety in this context may begin to sound like a First World Problem (FWP): Instagram celebrities and impoverished shoppers, the self-obsessed products of consumerism whose vapid, detached emotions boil down to an internet meme. More specifically, it is an unevenly distributed problem of the First World, as the work of Indigenous Australian artist Richard Bell suggests. In Bell's appropriations of Roy Lichtenstein, narcissistic quips reflect the vast gulf between indigenous and refugee lives and those of Europeans. As with Ulman's Instagram posts, the persona here is a product of its medium, the archetypical trivial type. Self-indulgence is aptly parodied in the service of a bigger historical judgment.

But as Auden speculated, artists may be more conscious than most of an 'inner disorder and dread'. The history of art is steeped in depictions of romanticised madness. Edvard Munch's The Scream 1893-1910, for example, has become a default image for inner angst. However, in cultures with a mental health crisis of epidemic proportions, we have yet to produce the definitive exhibition forms and artworks that span both the subjective emotional and political-historical dimensions of anxiety and depression. Mental illness remains the ultimate stigma and challenge to representation. Even within art's critical frameworks, subjective description risks a descent into self-absorption that threatens to cloud the big picture. The challenge is akin to the seemingly impossible assignment described in an ironic line at the end of David Foster Wallace's 1998 short story The Depressed Person: 'What terms might be used to describe and assess such a solipsistic self- consumed, bottomless emotional vacuum and sponge as she now appeared to herself to be?' The impossibility of sharing pain is, as the story suggests, a contributing factor in its essential horror.

Visual art has more to do - not simply in documenting the range and extent of our anxieties, but in constructing the means for their relief. Foster Wallace once named 'fiction, poetry, music' as the arts through which the loneliness of mental illness may be 'stared down, transfigured, treated'. Such big claims are more commonly made for both literature and music, perhaps because those forms can be experienced in private worlds. Books and music are a functional distraction from insomnia and pain, a means to quell rumination. More commonly an institutional experience, visual art does not seek to compete as cultural benzodiazepine.

But we have so far been too reticent in asserting art's public role, too fearful that its aesthetic purpose may be burdened or compromised by a mission to transform public health. We may not yet have the language for this. But as the politics of identity and self-fabrication were core to art's postmodern agenda, so the project of tackling anxiety begins.

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Are We All Anxious Now? - Tate Etc | Tate

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The all-consuming world of social media and the culture of fear perpetuated since the so-called 'war on terror' has pushed many of us to new levels of anxiety. How do artists respond to this, and can art provide a means of relief?

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6 Famous Artists Who Struggled with Mental Illness - 1000Museums

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6 Famous Artists Who Struggled with Mental Illness - 1000Museums

i think it’s interesting that so many famous artists suffer from some sort of mental illness, most commonly depression.

the artists given in this article were as follows:

•vincent van gogh (1853-1890)
suffered from anxiety and depression
•edgar degas (1834-1917)
suffered from bouts of depression and aimlessness
•edvard munch (1863-1944)
suffered from anxiety and hallucinations
•mark rothko (1903-1970)
suffered from bouts of depression and was diagnosed with mild aortic aneurysm
•georgia o’keeffe (1887-1986)
suffered from depression
•michelangelo buonarroti (1475-1564)
suffered from depression and anxiety and possibly obsessive-compulsive disorder

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6 Famous Artists Who Struggled with Mental Illness

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Artistic talent often comes with a price. Meet six artists who brought us beautiful art while suffering from bouts of mental illness.

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4 Artists Who Suffered Mental Illness (And How It Affected Their Art)

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Artists Who Suffered Mental Illness And How It Affected Their Art | DailyArt (dailyartmagazine.com)

•louis wain

-best known for his anthropomorphic(having human characteristics) cats in social situations

-suffered from depression and at age 57 was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent the last 15 years of his life in psychiatric institutions
-when wain was hospitalised he started making more psychedelic cats rather than the stylised ones from earlier on in his life, most of them coming from napsbury hospital

•edvard munch

“i cannot get rid of my illnesses, for there is a lot in my art that exists only because of them”

-most famous for painting “the scream” and for being one of the main artists of the expressionist movement.
-his family background already predisposed him to possible mental health problems
-his mother and one of his sisters died of tuberculosis when he was young, his father suffered from depression and his other sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia
-he had a mental breakdown in 1908 which was aggravated by alcoholism and was admitted into a mental health clinic in denmark
-in 1936 his work was confiscated by hitlers government and labelled by him “degenerate art”
-diagnosed with neurasthenia, a clinical condition associated with hysteria and hypochrondia

•francisco de goya

-spanish painter
-confined to bed at 46 and had lost hearing and was very sick with something undiagnosed at the time
-his deafness had several explanations such as syphilis or lead poisoning
-showed signs of mental disorders that affected his works
-more current speculation suggests that goya suffered from susac syndrome, which caused hearing loss, vision, also causes brain and balance problems
-attacks of hallucination and delirium were frequent during the most critical period of the painters illness
-the napoleonic wars deeply affected him
-in his work he portrayed the gravity of human  melancholy, with paintings depicting human suffering becoming more and more common

•yannoulis chalepas

-greek sculptor
-spent several decades without producing anything or destroying his works as soon as he created them
-opened an atelier in athens after studying in munich
-around 1878 he began to show the first symptoms of mental illness
-ten years later he was diagnosed with dementia at 36
-his mother believed that art was the real reason behind his mental state
-she tried to keep him from sculpting
-after she died in 1916 he returned to work
-researchers agree that in this period he began to create sculptures with more freedom and was not so attached to neoclassical ideas

the subject of mental illness and art has often been discussed, especially in recent years. It is undeniable that there is a relationship, especially if we think of art as an elementary form of human communication.

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DailyArtMagazine.com - Art History Stories

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The painter Vincent Van Gogh is well-known for his artworks and for a particular aspect of his personal life: the post-impressionist spent some time in a psychiatric clinic. There, he produced artworks such as Starry Night and many of his famous self-portraits.

Besides suffering from anxiety and depression, the artist also faced a crisis of epilepsy. Some experts believe that the painter suffered from xanthophyl - and this factor affected his art, since Van Gogh was to see more yellowish colors, he intensified yellows in his paintings.

In addition to Van Gogh, many other artists had similar problems. Today we'll introduce four artists who suffered from a mental illness - and how it affected their art.

1. Louis Wain (1860-1939)

Louis Wain was a born in 1860 English illustrator who became well known for his illustrations of anthropomorphic cats.

The big-eyed cats, who are usually in social situations, such as games or dating, were not initially created on a commission. Although Wain had been already known by the public, he began to draw cats to amuse his wife.

Unfortunately, shortly after he married, Wain lost his wife to cancer. And her death was the trigger for a deep depression in the artist's life.

At age 57, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a disorder that affects not only a person's way of thinking, but also their behavior. Wain began to act aggressive, so he spent the last 15 years of his life in psychiatric institutions.

It was not only his personality that was affected: Wain's works of art also began to have a style less and less similar to his initial artworks. His cats, before smiling and cuddly, began to show different traits, they turned more geometric and colorful. Most of these psychedelic kittens were born when Wain was hospitalized at Napsbury Hospital, where the artist died.

2. Edvard Munch (1863-1944)

"I can not get rid of my illnesses, for there is a lot in my art that exists only because of them," wrote the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, famous for the painting and for being one of the main artists of the expressionist movement.

Munch's family background already predisposed him to possible mental health problems. His mother and one of his sisters died of tuberculosis when he was still very young. Her father suffered from depression and her other sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Munch did not go unharmed. He had a mental breakdown in 1908, which was aggravated by alcoholism, and was admitted to a mental health clinic in Denmark.

In addition to the known mental problems, the painter still faced other issues: in 1937, his works were confiscated by Hitler's government, in the exhibition that the dictator called " degenerate art ".

Munch wrote that "sickness, madness, and death were the black angels that guarded my crib," and even came to be diagnosed with neurasthenia, a clinical condition associated with hysteria and hypochondria. His work is characterized by figures whose sense of despair and anguish are evident. The strokes and colors that Munch uses in his compositions often demonstrate his own state of mind.

3. Francisco de Goya (1746-1828)

The third artist on our list is the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya. At 46 years old, Goya was confined to bed, lost hearing and was very sick with something that was not diagnosed at the time. His deafness had several justifications, such as syphilis or lead poisoning. However, the artist also presented mental disorders which affected his work.

More current speculations suggest that Goya suffered from Susac Syndrome, a disease that in addition to causing hearing loss and vision, also causes brain and balance problems.

Attacks of hallucination and delirium were also frequent during the most critical period of the painter's illness. External factors such as the Napoleonic Wars deeply marked the painter, too. He portrayed in his works the gravity of human melancholy, with paintings depicting human suffering becoming more and more common.

4. Yannoulis Chalepas (1852-1938)

The Greek Yannoulis Chalepas is a different case. Not only is he the only sculptor on our list, but the mental illness he had had no direct effect on his style. Nevertheless, he spent several decades without producing anything or destroyed his works as soon as he created them.

Chalepas began his artistic career relatively quietly and even opened an atelier in Athens after studying in Munich. However, around 1878, he began to show the first symptoms of mental illness. Ten years later, he was diagnosed with dementia, being only 36 years old.

Chalepas's mother believed that art was really responsible for his son's mental state, so she tried to keep him away from sculpting. Only after her death in 1916, he did actually return to work. Researchers agree that in this period he began to create sculptures with more freedom and was not so attached to neoclassical ideals.

The subject of mental illness and art has often been discussed, especially in recent years. It is undeniable that there is a relationship, especially if we think of art as an elementary form of human communication. From this perspective, artistic production would not only be a response to disease but a form of output, an escape valve.
Find out more:

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4 Artists Who Suffered Mental Illness (And How It Affected Their Art)

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We introduced four artists who suffered mental illness - and how it affected their art. The subject mental illness and art has often been discussed, especially in recent years. It is undeniable that there is a relationship, especially if we think of art as an elementary form of human communication.

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Depression and anxiety self-assessment quiz - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

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Read about feelings and symptoms that can be common with mental health problems.

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Depression Rates by Country 2022 (worldpopulationreview.com)

the amount of cases in great britain are 2,692,081

top 10 countries with the highest rates of depression:

1 - Ukraine - 6.3%

2 - United States - 5.9% (tie)

3 - Estonia - 5.9% (tie)

4 - Australia - 5.9% (tie)

5 - Brazil - 5.8%

6 - Greece - 5.7% (tie)

7 - Portugal - 5.7% (tie)

8 - Belarus - 5.6% (tie)

9 - Finland - 5.6% (tie)

10 - Lithuania - 5.6% (tie)

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Depression, also known as major depressive disorder, is a mental health disorder that negatively affects how a person feels, how a person thinks, and how a person acts. Depression is common and, fortunately, treatable.

Depression symptoms can range from mild to severe, including:

A depressed mood or feeling of sadness

Los of interest in activities once enjoyed

Changes in appetite - weight loss or gain

Trouble sleeping or sleeping too much

Loss of energy or increased fatigue

Increase in purposeless tasks or physical activities such as pacing

Slowed movements and speech

Feeling guilty or worthless

Difficulty thinking or concentrating

Suicidal thoughts

For depression to be diagnosed, symptoms must last at least two weeks. Some medical conditions, such as thyroid problems or vitamin deficiencies, can mimic symptoms of depression and need to be ruled out.

Depression affects about 1 in 15 adults in any given year, and 1 in 6 people will experience depression at some time in their life. Risk factors for depression include:

Biochemistry: Differences in chemicals in the brain

Genetics: Depression can be hereditary

Personality: Those who are generally pessimistic or have low self-esteem are more likely to experience depression

Environment: those who are exposed to violence, abuse (physical, verbal, emotional, etc.), neglect, or poverty are more likely to experience depression

Depression is one of the most treatable mental illnesses, and those who have been diagnosed have multiple options depending on their diagnosis.

Anti-depressants may be prescribed to help modify one's brain chemistry.

Psychotherapy and/or cognitive behavioral therapy are often used to help individuals work through depression and are often combined with anti-depressants for moderate to severe depression.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a medical treatment most commonly used for patients diagnosed with severe depression who have not responded to other treatments. It involves a brief electrical stimulation of the brain while the patient is under anesthesia.

Depression Rates Around the World

An Our World In Data study estimates about 3.4% (margin of error makes this range 2-6%) of the global population has depression. This is about 264 million people worldwide.

According to WHO estimates, the ten countries with the highest prevalence of depression are:

The ten countries with the lowest rates of depression are:

A nation's culture can significantly impact its population's mental health and the availability of mental health treatment services. For example, while depression rates are relatively low in Japan, suicide rates are high for children and teens ages 10-19. This is most likely due to pressure to do well in school and work and conform to group norms.

The countries with the lowest rates of depression have just recently added mental health screening and treatment services to their health care infrastructure, which, in part, could explain the reason for the low depression rates. Conversely, countries with widespread access to quality health care, specifically mental health care services, could have high rates because of the availability of screening and treatment services. Additionally, certain depression symptoms are more common in some societies than others due to other factors.

While depression rates are rising around the world, treatment is becoming more available and accessible. Rising depression rates are also attributed to more people seeking and receiving a diagnosis and treatment for mental illness, rather than going undiagnosed. For example, in the United States and several countries, the stigma surrounding mental illnesses has gradually decreased. This allows it to become more normal to discuss mental illness openly and encourages people to seek help when they need it.

An estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States had a least one major depressive episode in 2017. Among those diagnosed with depression, about 65% received treatment. About 50% of U.S. adults diagnosed with depression are also diagnosed with anxiety. Oregon, West Virginia, and Maine have the highest depression rates.

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Depression, also known as major depressive disorder, is a mental health disorder that negatively affects how a person feels, how a person thinks, and how a person acts. Depression is common and, fortunately, treatable.

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Art Therapy Exercises To Help Reduce Feelings of Anxiety (arttherapyresources.com.au)

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1. MIND BODY CONNECTION
The mind and body are closely connected and can influence each other in a feedback loop whereby the mind creates feelings of tension in the body, and heightened feelings in the body leads to overthinking in the mind.

In this exercise, ask your client to use a pencil or pen to draw the outline of a body. Before your client draws the body outline, ask them to take a minute to reflect on physical feelings in their own body in this moment and consider if their body is feeling any tension, pain or discomfort in any areas.

Incorporate the knowledge of these physical feelings when drawing the body outline.

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2. 1 MINUTE BRAIN DUMP
Ask your client to draw a large circle to represent a thought bubble. Inside the thought bubble, ask your client to draw or write words to brain dump all of the issues they are currently feeling anxious about. Do this exercise in a minute. Using a shortened time frame will help your client "dump" their worries and reduce the possibility of rationalising or minimizing their feelings of anxiety.

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3. MIND MAP ANXIETY
Explain to your client the concept of mind mapping. Ask your client to then create a mind map focusing on one current pervasive issue that is causing anxiety at this time. As part of the mind map, label the components that contribute to the anxiety. Some examples of labels to consider in the mind map:
Some examples of labels to consider in the mind map:

What triggers the initial situation

Emotional feelings

Physical feelings

Negative thoughts

Interpersonal interactions

Calming techniques

Each label may be represented multiple times.

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4. GRATITUDE JOURNALING
Ask your client to use journaling as a method of exploring gratitude within their life. This exercise can be done generally by exploring all facets of your client's life or it can be done with a specific focus on a situation that is causing your client anxiety. For eg. If a situation at work is causing anxiety, the gratitude journaling could focus on things to be grateful about in their employment outside of the stressful situation that exists, ie helpful colleagues, good pay, interesting work etc.

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5. VISUAL STARTER
Reduce your client's anxiety about creating art by providing a visual starter to help loosen them up. Use the download provided as a stimulus to create an artwork. A number of prompts are provided in the download. You can use each prompt to create various individual artworks or use all of the prompts for a larger artwork.

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6. WORRY CLOUD
Ask your client to draw a cloud where all of their worries can be placed inside. Your client can then transform their drawing to show their worry cloud being blown away by the wind. As clouds also reshape, your client can use this metaphor as a process of reshaping their own worries.

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7. COMFORT CASTLE
Ask your client to create their own castle of comfort. The castle can have many levels that contain many of the personal comforts your client has. Your client can use this comfort castle as a process of implementing coping strategies to deal with anxious feelings that arise.

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8. MANDALA
Introduce your client to mandala drawing. This ancient art form helps with feelings of anxiety as they require focused attention to create the patterns. The repetition of patterns and rhythmic movements help to reduce heightened emotions.

Research suggests ( Can Coloring Mandalas Reduce Anxiety?) that "structured coloring of a reasonably complex geometric pattern may induce a meditative state that benefits individuals suffering from anxiety."

A replication study ( C an Coloring Mandalas Reduce Anxiety? A Replication Study ) also supports the hypothesis that colouring a mandala reduces anxiety.

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9. CREATE PATTERNS
Similiar to mandala's, you can introduce your client to creating their own patterns. An artform called Zentangle has emerged in recent years which falls under this category of pattern drawing. Zentangles are miniature pieces of abstract patterns that are defined as "artistic meditation" through the process of focused attention in creating the patterns.

Watch this video for an example of creating patterns.

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10. AFFIRMATION CARD
Ask your client to create an affirmation card or series of cards that they can carry in their purse or wallet. At any time they feel anxious they can look at the affirmation card and reflect on the affirmation to help them deal with their anxious feelings.
Examples include:

This too shall pass

Breathe calmly

I am calm

I live in peace

The future is good

I am free

I am not in danger, just uncomfortable

This will become easier

I have control over my thoughts

STOP!

Find gratitude for 3 things

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Art Therapy Exercises To Help Reduce Feelings of Anxiety

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1. MIND BODY CONNECTION The mind and body are closely connected and can influence each other in a feedback loop whereby the mind creates feelings of tension in the body, and heightened feelings in the body leads to overthinking in the mind.

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i really like the use of lines to add texture in the direction needed, the colours are complementary and contrasting (the use of blue and yellow)

the colours are also really bold with the yellows, multiple shades of blue, hints of greens and purples

the way the town is painted makes it look like it’s out of focus as the colours very closely match the background, when it curves closer the colours get bolder and more visible

the way he blended the paints add a nice sense of warm light to the scene, especially as it reflects onto the water where the lines are used

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i really like the brush strokes used to stimulate the look of fur, follow that with the bold colours and the hints of nature. the darker blue underneath the head helps us define between the head and the neck without the use of lines, this means that the shading carries the shape and form.

the white base with vibrant colours added on top looks very pleasing to the eyes, and the use of bright orange surrounded by a darker blue in the flowers directs your gaze to that spot almost immediately

i really enjoy the fact that he paints anthropomorphic cats and some of his other drawings kind of give me an alice in wonderland vibe, with the cats having tea and just doing human activities.

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the use of a lot of different tones of colours adds a vibrant type of look to a darker themed painting
(wip)

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i originally drew a semi-realistic cat using a photo reference and once i got the basis down i started to think of stuff that i could use to stylise it more, so i thought of the phrase “burning rage” and decided to add fire

i drew it thinking about how it would translate into lino cutting, with the rectangle around it and varying line width

the cat itself is more of louis wain’s style and the fire is mine, i enjoy drawing fire with really sharp points as it makes it look more aggressive and stylised

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all of them were drawn while looking at real life photo references