How She Creates: Ep 012 - Art Therapy with Amy Maricle
In today's episode Lauren interviews Amy Maricle about mindfulness in art journaling. We discuss using art as self care and how to get your family on board with you spending time on yourself. Amy shares a ton of great techniques, tips and ideas for creating simple, intuitive background pages that will help you relax, explore your creativity and build beautiful pages through working in layers. Listen in today for many great practical tips on how to give yourself permission to use art to care for yourself.
Episode Takeaways and Artist Actions
- How creating art is a spiritual experience
- How to use art as self care
- How art as self care at home and art therapy are different
- Process is more important than finished project
- Learning your sweet spot in when is the best portion of your creative time
- How play helps us release stress and learn
- How Amy approaches her pages
- How to work expressively and intuitively
- Tuning into your senses when creating to cultivate awareness and presence
- Tips for getting started when you don't know what to do
- Choosing materials that evoke senses that are inspirational for you
- How to get your family on board with you spending time creating
- Artist Action: Work in stages
- Artist Action: Work in multiple journals at once
- Artist Action: Write first, then build layers over your words
- Artist Action: Paint on craft foam to create a stamp to create a patterned background
- Artist Action: 'Messy backgrounds': use white + 1 color to scribble with paint
- Artist Action: Repeat the same technique on multiple pages at once to experiment and perfect a technique
- Artist Action: Give yourself permission to just 'warm up' on your pages
- Artist Action: Set a timer to give yourself a break and to stay in your own time parameters
- Artist Action: Pretend you are a toddler to push your boundaries when making
- Artist Action: Take online or in person art classes to give yourself vocabulary and new skills
- Artist Action: Follow a challenge, prompt, tutorial when you need help getting started
- Artist Action: Try the 3 one minute drawings exercise: fast, slow and medium
- Artist Action: Make a pretty sign of an important phrase for you to keep on your art table (slow down, follow your senses, etc)
- Artist Action: Keep a page open on your desk all the time
- Artist Action: Create a travel kit to always have with you
- Artist Action: Create a 1" x 1" journal
- Tips for beginners:
- Keep it simple
- Work in layers
- Use patterns
- Use the messy background technique
- TAKE YOUR TIME!
- Carve out your time: put a sign on the door, turn on music, have the time set aside
- Give yourself the permission to care for yourself and create something
Resources and Tools
Please note that some of these are affiliate links. As always, we'd never recommend anything we (or the artists) don't truly love.
- Liz Lurman's Dance school
- American Art Therapy Association
- Get Messy Art Journal
- Carla Sonheim Blobimals
- Episode 2 Collage + #5minutesofcollage
- Messy background technique
- Creative Mentoring Services to help people identify the blocks to creativity and make fun and fulfilling art
- Torrie from Fox and Hazel's tiny art journal
- 1 inch O ring journal video
Amy's portable art kit and homemade watercolour kit
Guests
Amy Maricle
Amy Maricle is an artist, art therapist, author, and blogger who wants everyone to experience the healing power of art. She works in Foxboro, Massachusetts and lives nearby with her family and two trouble-making, lovable pooches.
