From my Art therapy journal.

 Thank you for the kind wishes in my last post. Please keep them coming. I can use some good juju vibes on the last post. Thought I'd show some pages from my art therapy journal, which helps me process, deal and cope and maybe I can inspire some of you to do the same. I had this lying around, one of the Sage herbs, liked the image, wanted to do something with it. Salvia Pratensis Expecto Patronum.

Felt lousy. Got out some cheap colored pencils and markers, a glue stick and the journal is a thick papered daily planner. I often pick these up in March when stores sell them for a few dollars. I use my art watercolor journals for more serious art. This is a junk journal. I leave the reverse blank, in case one of the pages turns out well, then I paste it into my better journal. 

The color isn't reproducing properly, which is fine because it's gloriously fugly, but I feel better, which is the point. I used colored pencil to scribble the background, the glued and stickered. While I tried to layer, the pencils don't blend, the colors aren't intense so everything looks pastelly.

I drew some covsshh cells, then targeted them for my immune system. Then my arm hurt, spasmed a bit and I got angry. Scribbles and angry doodles where the result. That's the point. The process, not the outcome. I went over with brush markers and just raged a little. The label stickers will probably have some swear words.

Mine

Art therapy is about personal symbolism. I wanted to juxtapose the medicinal properties of a plant with the chaos of this particular illness. I targeted it because it's long gone, but the immune system destroyed my own cells to get at it. Those need to be replaced which will take time.

This page is the first step to healing. I had something else in mind, but this is what came out. More Sage and order. Couldn't draw more than one spiral properly so just thought eff it. The pastel faded look is not my choice, but for the last year it's the sticker and colored pencil trend to add pink to reds. Oh well.

Mine

There it is. The doing, not the outcome. The result of 20 minutes a page? A little endorphin release and a reduction in feeling stressed.