Just for a moment imagine that you are stressed out, there is work pressure and loads of chores at home. You are close to exploding with anger. And at that moment a kindly soul hands you a crisp white sheet of paper, and lovely rich colours, and tells you to make a painting. You will either tell the kindly soul that he’s off his rockers or you will furiously start to create something. If you do start to create something with the lovely rich colours, then you will soon start to feel a little less strung up, and after a few minutes you will get a feeling of satisfaction and feel cam. Why?
The reason is that when you express yourself in any way, you release your inner feelings, be they tensions, hassles, pain or happiness. What then happens, is that the feelings slowly mellow down and reach a golden mean where you feel calm and in control, and it effectively reduces stress. This is the power of art.
Just by creating something on a piece of paper, with colours or even a black pen will give you a sense of joy and happiness, that nothing else can. The idea from the beginning must not be to make something beautiful or great, but to get your inner feelings out on that paper with shapes, colours and forms. If you can do that you will feel a difference.
When you do this often, you slowly get into a rhythm that is close to meditation. While your eyes and hands work away steadily in creating something, your mind wanders aimlessly touching all the valves inside your head and releasing the thoughts gently. Before you know it you are painting in what feels like a detached trance.
This is what makes creating a piece of art so much more than just an act of creating. You can do it with paints, pens, clay or anything at all that lets you create shapes, colours and things. You may even want to glue together cuttings from magazines and newspapers to make art collages.
And most important of all, you don’t need to be an artist or any good at drawing or painting to do this. Remember the aim is not to create a thing of beauty or greatness, it is to let your inner feelings come out in colours, shapes and forms.
So, go ahead and paint away your tensions and stresses, it’s the best hobby you can ever have.
