Art therapy is a great thing, and this is a perfect exercise to find your inner peace, self, mind or madness! Using four emotions, calm, anger, joy, and a decided fourth ‘intuitive‘, as four separate A1 boards I was asked to portray my inner feelings using each emotion as inspiration.
Choosing four different mediums in a neutral colour I went for graphite pencil, oil pastel, feather and ink and chalk pastel. From here I was asked to fold each of the boards into four A3 sections. Each board would represent an emotion and I used each chosen medium to draw out as best I could a manifest representation of that mood digging deep into my soul for inspiration!
……’Interesting’ I thought as I tried to work out how I could access my ‘inner animal’, but even more interesting is what I found out about the relationship between the emotion and the medium…..
I found it helpful to start off in a quiet environment with the board in front of me, and, getting into a relaxed, almost meditative frame of mind I could start to visualise the emotion and what it felt like in that emotion. Now settled in the feeling, I found that music was a great communicator and chose an appropriate track for the moment, picking up the medium and seeing what my hand decided to do. I say ‘hand decided’ as I think that it’s easier to let emotion guide the pencil by bypassing the brain, trying not to think too much about what’s going down on paper.
Calm – Graphite Stick 
Calm – Oil Pastel 
Calm – Chalk Pastel
‘Calm’ was an emotion I felt I could control what I was drawing without thinking too much. Slow, flowing lines almost playfully interacting with each other. A definite connection between the shapes with no sharp, jagged or awkward lines.
Ink and feather worked well to give liquid fluidity like rippling water. Useful on a small, detailed, intricate level.
Graphite stick a little less controlled and detailed but more expressive, adaptive and spontaneous , but still adequate for ‘calm’.
Oil Pastel difficult to convey ‘calm’ with this medium, I think the grain more than anything gave it a jerky, aggressive look, even with the smooth curves I was trying to portray.
Chalk Pastel was the most workable as I could blend it, smooth it, and create a few different textures that appeared like a dreamy haze flowing through the page.
Joy – Chalk Pastel 
Joy – Graphite Pencil
‘Joy’ was somewhat less controlled than ‘calm’. Something I realised with all the emotions that the two ‘subdued’, ‘internal’ emotions, calm and intuitive were much more controlled than the two ‘heightened’, ‘external’ feelings of joy and anger. This was my first interesting thought. Joy felt similar to calm with fluid swirls and circles, but was much more erratic at times in short bursts.
Chalk Pastel was fun, but would have been more applicable to a larger scale to capture the energy in the emotion.
Graphite pencil worked well because of the range of different marks I could make from thin precise lines to broad sweeping curves, I think it would work well from A3 scale to larger.
Oil Pastel surprisingly worked very well, having movement and flow, with enough tooth to give a bold depth of tone, giving spontaneous, accurate detail, and a lot more control over an extroverted emotion.
Ink and feather probably the most expressive, but least impacting. I imaging if I had a giant feather and a white room I could have done this medium justice! The same undulations of concentrated emotion, followed be explosions of energy were most apparent in this one.
‘Anger’ was a difficult emotion to exercise control with! And I think this goes for drawing as well! On a large scale this energy could easily be applied to something that calm or intuitive never could. Erratic, sharp, wild, unconditioned, beyond rational was the only things I could get out of all the mediums. However put on a very large scale I think this energy could be harnessed to create a hidden beauty.
Anger – Chalk Pastel 
Anger – Oil Pastel 
Anger – Graphite Stick 
Anger – Feather and Ink
My choice of the emotions was ‘intuitive’. Similar to calm but with more insight and awareness I found this emotion a perfect place to create. Funnily enough I found that the lines and shapes that were emerging were similar to the ones I discovered in the last warm up exercise ‘temporary drawings’. Fractal swirls and amorphic shapes started to take form from my subconscious as I calmly dug deeper, controlled, but not prerequisite I felt more in tune to this mood than the others.
Oil pastel and graphite pencil were similar in outcome because of the variety of marks I could make. Hard lines, tone, and a decent amount of detail for the scale, I was able to fluidly move through the paper without restriction while building up a decent amount of definition.
Feather and Ink surprised me how it turned out. I found the intuition was more representative of the medium I was using. Unlike the two above, the ink came out more like a waterfall with sharp edges and spontaneous scribbles, yet turned itself into an almost water reflection which I found interesting.
Chalk pastel I found was fluffy and vague without being able to get a sharp line. This actually worked well in its own way and gave it a dreamy character.
I was impressed with ‘intuitive’ as a mood to be in while drawing as I was more susceptible to detail and flow. However I found it interesting to discover that different emotions are best suited to certain styles of drawing, ie anger – large scale expressive lines, intuitive – detail and inspiration. Good to keep in mind when I’m deciding what sort of outcome I want from a final piece.
With all this in mind what i found most interesting was what each emotion offered. The two heightened emotions ‘anger’ and ‘joy’ were both passionate and expressive, but without control or thought. ‘Calm’ and ‘intuitive’ were both thoughtful, controlled and in tune. With this in mind I think it’s healthy to decide what outcome you want from a drawing and blend a little bit of one with the other to get the best results. Then choose the most suited medium to express that outcome.
Eeyanski Arts 