According to the world health organization February is Healthy Lifestyle Awareness Month.
The world has taken a different turn since the Covid pandemic and physical, mental and emotional well being is much more considered. There is awareness about the well-being benefits of creative practice on the psyche, spirit and the mind. I can recall a time when many creative practioners were not physically healthy at all and were bound up with unused energy spinning off the planet with anxiety. Now there are more integrated practices like yoga and somatic movement techniques helping people and artists to process better.
In 2022 I did a qi gong course with my teacher Dr Thomas Jahn. I was one of those creatives who was bound up and having panic attacks. I had a far too great accumulation of energy from over stimulating myself drinking, drinking coffee, in my personal life, at art fairs, galleries, artist talks, in my studio and was not sufficiently expressing any of that. I was in a twist and after the first few classes I started to find my balance and literally became physically stronger.
Being physically stronger and more balanced I had more energy and more time to follow through on the things I needed to do. I was less overwhelmed. I started to draw again and began a daily practice of making at least one doodle of what ever I could find in my environment a day.
This practice became possible after I’d met with one of my mentors (I have four mentors) and had a big meltdown. I was expressing that I had a book for writing, a book for drawing and book for daily planning and I was feeling very scattered and all over the place. She made a suggestion that I make my own books. She really is a visionary and I double took and decided to try out her idea.
That was how my daily doodles books were made. [If you would like to buy one or order a few you can send me a DM – they have space for writing, drawing and planning and offer a few creative prompts] In fact that later became the name of my business – Doodles Daily Drawing !
The power of the sketchbook is underestimated. The sketchbook is a document of who you were yesterday, who you are today and will be tomorrow. It is evidence that things and, by extension, we change everyday and what we saw yesterday and how you chose to represent it is different every day. Drawing is a tool to not only express yourself but also to map and document your perception.
There are many well-documented benefits to engaging in creative practice. The one I tend to gravitate towards is that - beyond the meditative quality enhancing attention to detail and eye hand co-ordination – drawing and art-making is process oriented and so you are inherently processing your environment, your response to your environment and where you are at every time to you make something. That is powerful stuff!
This year I have hosted two half-day workshops and I have had the honour to hear peoples stories of grief an how they manage their new lives. How they are seeking both physical and metaphysical balance and drawing is helping them to do so.
This past Saturday at the February workshop one young artist had this amazing aha moment where she clicked that the drawing she made a year ago can never be made again because all of the more subtle and obvious variables have changed. It was like watching her see value grow. The value of the moment, the value of taking the time to make the mark, and, the value of that mark – how epic is that?
Googling Healthy Lifestyle Awareness I found many charts that graphically indicated that a balanced wholesome daily practice supports a healthy life. If you spend 2-5 minutes everyday at a blank page with a pen or pencil and just allow the mark to make it's self you will start to see what all the rage is about.
https://www.instagram.com/moniquepelserstudio/
Drawing by it's very nature is process orientated. You start with a mark which becomes a line and it develops into an image. Making drawings you are therefore processing. My name is Monique Pelser I am a South African artist, producer, researcher, educator, creative recovery coach and Qi Gong practitioner.
I teach drawing as a skill as well as a wellness practice to children and adults in my doodles sessions.
On this channel I share the experiences and insights I have gained in my life and research process.
The methods I use are breathing, drawing and writing and are used to support self-awareness, mindfulness, self-development as well as creative problem solving. I am the founder of Doodles Daily Drawing.
When you strengthen the individual you strengthen the corporation. When you strengthen the corporation you strengthen the world.
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