Because studies show that whenever we repress, deny, or disallow an emotion to be what it needs to be, our network pathways get blocked. Pretty soon, they’re gumming up the works and the vital feel-good unifying chemicals that dictate both our biology and behavior are unable to flow.
Ten Creative Ways to Express Yourself Through Art
Creativity is a crucial part of our lives, allowing us to express ourselves in unique and innovative ways. By embracing your creative potential, you get the opportunity to build on existing ideas while creating something entirely new.
Even if it feels like creativity isn’t in your DNA, anyone can start to unlock their creative potential with a little bit of effort. Inspiration could come from anything; from taking a walk outdoors or reading a book in a religious topic or genre. Once you feel inspired, you can then take that spark of imagination and use it to fuel your projects. Whether writing poetry, creating artwork, or developing technology; giving form to your creative thoughts can bring about amazing results!
The Importance Of Expressing Yourself
Expressing yourself is a vital part of being human. It’s important to have an outlet to express your thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Having an avenue to communicate allows you to better understand yourself and others around you. When you can freely communicate what you think and feel, you gain a much deeper understanding of your needs and wants. In the long run, self-expression can help you create meaningful relationships.
Ten Creative Ways to Express Yourself Through Art
Art is an excellent medium for self-expression. Creativity often provides comfort and empowerment, allowing us to express emotions and ideas that are difficult to communicate verbally. From wide-ranging mediums in the arts, here are some fun and interesting ideas for expressing yourself.
Sketching
Sketching can unlock endless possibilities for anyone wishing to explore this artistic expression. It improves your brain’s ability to function and also improves concentration. From pencils, charcoal, and graphite to markers and pastels; each medium offers unique textures that bring your sketches to life. Many sketch artists also enjoy experimenting with materials such as paper towels or newspapers for added texture in their work.
Painting
Painting can be used to create visual stories or convey emotion with each stroke of the brush. Even if you’re a beginner, there are simple techniques that anyone can learn and add to their work – such as line weight, shading technique, or hue selection – which will give your work more depth and personality. It doesn’t matter whether you paint on paper, wood, or canvas; what matters is that it’s an outlet for self-expression through which you can abstractly tell your story. Plus, did you know that painting boosts your memory, recollection and critical thinking skills? In fact, people who paint often have a decreased chance of developing memory-loss illnesses, like dementia and Alzheimer’s, as they age.
Sculpture
Sculpture can take on various forms, from intricate wood carvings to large-scale public statues. Working with clay, wood, and metal allows individuals to shape their artistic visions in three-dimensional form. The process of creating sculptures can be both meditative and liberating as it provides an avenue for true self-expression.
Multimedia Art Or Digital Art
Digital art gives users the freedom to create unique pieces of artwork that can be shared with others across the world. From painting and drawing tools to 3D modeling, there are plenty of options available to help bring your vision into reality. Ways to work within a virtual environment include taking photos or scanning existing artwork. With these tools at hand, users have the ability to craft eye-catching pieces that are sure to stand out in any gallery or portfolio.
Collage
Collage-making is a fun, easy way to create something beautiful. With just some glue and paper, you can construct interesting shapes and designs that represent your inner self. You could cut out images from magazines or newspapers, draw images, or even use photographs; there are no limits when creating collages! Plus, the whole process allows for improvisation – if you don’t like something you’ve made, just remove (or cover) it and continue.
Performance Art
Performance art is a unique combination of visual arts and theatre used to communicate ideas. It often involves telling stories through movement, props, costumes, and soundscapes. This type of artistic expression allows performers to explore various themes such as identity, politics, and emotion in a way that traditional mediums don’t provide. Performance art can take many forms; from spoken word pieces to abstract movement performances to interactive installations that involve audience participation.
Writing Poetry/Stories
Writing stories is an effective way to express yourself creatively. A story can be about anything you want — a fantasy world, a past event, an inner struggle — and by writing it down, you can paint a vivid picture for readers.
Writing poetry is another popular form of expression that allows you to capture your feelings and experiences on paper. Through powerful imagery, metaphors, and rhymes, you can create beautiful pieces of art that others can relate to.
Calligraphy
Calligraphic art is a beautiful form of writing that helps you get your thoughts down in an elegant way. It utilizes various tools such as ink pens or paintbrushes to create elegant compositions with symbols, characters, or letters.
With some practice and dedication, you can become skilled enough that you can create meaningful works of art that reflect your personality and thoughts in an aesthetically pleasing manner.
Photography/Videography
Artistic practices such as photography and videography allow you to explore your creative side while capturing special moments. There are various ways that you can express yourself through these mediums, including unique techniques and approaches.
Photography provides an opportunity to capture moments in time, telling stories with each image. Photographers often experiment with angles, lighting, effects, and more to create stunning visuals while conveying a message or emotion. Videography uses moving images to tell stories in ways that still images cannot. By combining audio elements such as music or narration along with visual components like effects and transitions, videographers can communicate powerful messages.
Crafting/DIY Projects
Crafting can be a fun and stress-relieving activity with just a few supplies and some imagination. Not only is crafting an enjoyable activity, but it can also be beneficial in terms of mental health – helping you relax and develop problem-solving skills while providing creativity for self-expression.
Conclusion: Achieving Your Creativity
We all have the potential to be creative. Whether we’re painters, musicians, or writers, creativity can help us find fulfillment and joy in life. Often, it’s difficult to tap into our natural gifts and unlock our full creative potential. However, it is an achievable goal.
With a little effort, you can learn to open up to new ideas, express yourself freely, and use new approaches to tackle old problems. With patience and dedication, you can develop your creativity in whatever way you please. So, take the time out of each day to explore your imagination; it will be worth it in the end.
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When You Can’t Draw Your Feelings
Hello friends, today, I’ll show you what you can do if you’re feeling stuck with trying to express your feelings through art.
You might have tried to do this exercise I shared previously, where I showed you how to draw or paint your emotions on paper. I know some of you might have a difficult time actually doing this activity. So today I am sharing easy hacks or tips that you can try to if you want to express yourself and use art as an outlet for your feelings.
I’m Youhjung and I do art therapy with people and make art for myself. The tips I’m sharing here are actually what I incorporate into my therapeutic art online sessions. Hopefully this can help you begin to release some blocks around making art to express your emotions.
You can also watch this video where I show you some demonstrations of the tips:
Practice Mindfulness
I realized that for many of you, it can feel very difficult to put our emotions onto paper.
This is because: (1) we’re worried too much about the results and we are perfectionistic or judgmental, and (2) difficulty visualizing or getting in touch with the feeling.
First of all, it is quite common to feel this way. Drawing feelings is a very different endeavor, since it is not drawing something we see. We’re really trying to translate what we sense and feel in our bodies, into something that we can see with our eyes.
And that is why it’s important to let go of trying to drawing realistically. Rather than using our eyes to draw something realistically, it’s WAY more important to tune into our bodily sensations and use our intuition.
And how can we do that? By practicing mindfulness first and foremost. For those of you who experience difficulty in actually visualizing the sensation of the emotion (or the emotion itself), this is a great way to move through that block.
You can watch this previous video I made around how you can create art to practice mindfulness.
The 5 Tips for Expressing your Emotions through Art
Now let’s get into the 5 tips I have for you.
I know this can be difficult to do alone, so if you really want an experienced person to guide you, and be able to express and explore your feelings, find the right-fitting art therapist or therapeutic art facilitator in my Visionary Hall! Members in this Hall have went through and completed my Visionary Art Therapists Program and are ready to see clients.
With that said, I hope that you can try these tips out. Thanks and see you next time!
* This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, you won’t pay anything more, but I’ll receive a small commission, which helps me keep making videos & writing blogs for free. Thank you!
Steps toward Self-Expression
Sometimes getting started can be the toughest part. You don’t need to create an original masterpiece though. You’re just finding a way to let emotions flow.
Pablo Picasso once said, “Art is theft.” So while each piece of art is different, the inspirations are shared. At Arts Academy in the Woods (AAW), we encourage the following as you attempt to express emotions through art:
1. Do Not Hold Back
Whether it’s painting or poetry, music or mixed media, it’s easy to start feeling stifled when facing a creative medium. You may feel you don’t understand “the rules” associated with that medium.
Forget about the rules. You’re trying to create something that’s a reflection of you – not striving to attain technical mastery of the medium. Just allow yourself to feel. Fully and completely.
Allow your emotions to guide you on how you create the art. You will feel cathartic as you utilize the art to let go of damaging emotions that have been bottled up for too long.
2. Embrace Mistakes
One of the single biggest obstacles is fear of failure. It can cause you to give up before you even start. But the true failure is not trying in the first place.
At AAW, we remind students that failure is one of the best ways to learn. Of course, we’re not encouraging intentional failing. But everyone makes mistakes when creating art. View it as a learning experience and keep going. What’s important is that you’re letting your creativity flow.
If you’re obsessing over staying “safe” with art or worried about what others think your art should be, you will end up not revealing much about yourself. So just keep in mind that when creating self-expressive art, you can be comfortable in taking risks. You want the art to mean something to you – regardless of what others think.
3. Question Your Actions
When engaged with self-expressive art, you have to be brave and dig deep. Ask yourself why you behave in certain ways. Even if you don’t like the answers. Doing so is going to allow you to release the emotions around those behaviors while also giving you insight into your thoughts and actions.
4. Be Spontaneous
Spontaneous art is incredibly liberating. It’s one of the best ways to release emotions. So be impulsive. Throw some paint on a canvas Jackson Pollock style. Or explore some experimental sounds on music tracks like Björk. You don’t have to rely on preexisting art forms. Give it a try. You might be surprised at how free you feel.
5. Chill
Don’t put a bunch of pressure on yourself. And certainly don’t let other’s pressure you. Stress and tension will harsh your creativity buzz. And they’ll just create more negative emotions – which is counterintuitive to the whole process.
So seriously. Relax. Let the art be emblematic of you. Because it’s for you.
Art As a Necessary Part of the Curriculum
Art educators understand the importance of learning through art. At arts-integrated schools, they even teach math, science, and social studies through art . Beyond that though, you learn a lot about yourself through art too.
Self-expressive art helps you find new depths to your thinking you may not have realized were there. And you can apply this to so many other areas of your life. That’s what makes art such an important part of education.
Art allows students to release stress in a healthy way. It gives them an alternative way to express themselves – either through a shared experience, or one that’s more private. Yet stripping funding for the arts in place of STEM subjects continues to happen.
And it’s a true disservice to students – and future adults – everywhere.
Want to Find out More about Expressing Emotion through Art?
At an arts academy middle school/high school like AAW, students are encouraged to grow and flourish by expressing emotion through art in a safe environment.
They learn the value of art and how it applies to every aspect of life. And most of all, they are taught to forget about the naysayers and overcome the obstacles when it comes to self-expression; to always move forward and do what they love.
If you feel like AAW could be the perfect place for your middle school or high school-aged child to thrive, contact us today to find out more. Expressing ourselves is more important now than ever.
