3. Unleashing the Power of Emotions: Exploration of self-expression through art

The Blog posts titled:

Unleashing the Raw Power of Emotions: A Journey of Self-Discovery

are a series of documentations from a self-discovery, creative process with Expressive Arts that ran over the course of six weeks.

All images and texts herein are original and consent was given to post these here on this website only.

The introduction Blog https://reginegillmann.wixsite.com/art-therapy/post/unleashing-the-raw-power-of-emotions-a-journey-of-self-discovery-through-large-canvas-painting

about large scale painting describes the initial creative process.

"I have to paint something!" Standing in front of the large canvas I feel overwhelm and doubt...

And so I created a jumble of colors, shapes, lines, shadows, images...just a splatter of color. The picture is confusing like a blurry dream; a pile of symbols that keep melting away.

The question arises again: I have to paint something that makes sense, right? Something, not nothing! Not just a chaos of color!

Dissatisfaction plagues me. A restlessness arises within me. How should I proceed?

I looked out the window and saw the mountains.

"I'm painting the landscape." I'm tired of searching for a solution. The process takes too long.

Not long after, a mountain landscape emerged. Then another form, a kind of bird, emerged. It was abstract, but it was there. The bird slowly emerged, growing with each brushstroke. The bird's beak became more prominent. Well, even outstanding in the slowly developing landscape, under a full moon.

The process: exploring, discovering, changing, painting over, finding a resolution.

"I feel stuck again!"

And so often we have that feeling of not knowing how to continue our artwork. We reach a point where we don't like it. We feel the painting is not finished yet, but still we feel dissatisfied and hanging in limbo. Something in me feels like just aborting this painting mission and walking away.

But this is the exact point where we need to pause, and step back.

We need to explore these emotions. Become aware of them. Breathe. Become mindful and find yourself in this exact point of discomfort and irritation and agitation and unrest.

Then ask yourself: where is this trigger? What makes me feel like this?

"It's not going anywhere.

I am not happy with it.

I don't know what else to do - but it's not finished....

I don't like it.

I spent so much time and it is not what I imagined it to be.

What now?"

Sit with it!

Turn the canvas 90 degrees.

Change the perspective.

Squint your eyes, look at things in detail, move back and see it from far.

"I changed the music that was playing in the background. I needed something fast-paced with a beat. Some music that required me not to think and reminisce but instead to just move!

I set myself the challenge to just paint and I was not allowed to stand still. I had to move and keep up with the rhythm of the music and I had to paint fast!

After a short while new forms emerged. I splattered on the paint and dared to go all out.

I had nothing to lose. I made it my challenge to just paint in a way I never would normally paint.

A few hours later more images emerged. More birds.

Artwork gets a life of its own through allowing it a series of transformations...

The painting was not done yet but I felt more pleased than I was before.

And most of all, I had fun now.