Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Color Therapy

Ahhh... more relaxing than a spa!

When I’m feeling anxious or restless, drawing is one of the best ways to make me settle down immediately, focus and relax. Sometimes, though, I’m also tired, and drawing requires too much energy. That’s when I use a couple of other favorite tactics: One is making color swatches of art materials. (Based on many YouTubes I’ve seen, other people find swatching to be a relaxing activity too, but I find it relaxing only if I’m doing the swatching myself. I guess viewers like to watch others spend the entire video making swatches? I find it boring!) Another activity has an even easier entry point with no setup required: organizing or sorting colored pencils.

I’m working on a blog post of a newly acquired set of vintage colored pencils (you’ll see the post soon) that required some “research” in the form of matching colors from one set with those from another. Ahhh… such a relaxing, nearly brainless activity! At least, I thought it was brainless until I realized how quickly my eye was able to pick the right pencil among subtly different hues. That was satisfying as well as relaxing.

What’s your favorite art material-related activity when you want to relax?

4 comments:

  1. I thought this was going to be a post on how relaxing it is to LOOK at the colors of your pencil collection;-)
    I agree that watching swatching (hear what I did there?😅) is so boring that I speed through the video to get to the conclusions. But, I do like my own swatching. I think the most relaxing and mindless activity is art supply inventory. Mine are stored in so many spots that occasionally I rearrange and start a list of what I have. It is dopamine inducing AND money saving at the same time.😉 Anne

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    1. Oh, indeed -- it probably encourages "shopping" in your own stash! I'd better get to that, too. ;-)

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  2. I have to admit that I never make swatches or color wheels. I'd rather just sit and sketch. Sketching for the "scavenger hunts" usually relaxes me...unless I can't find an item anywhere. lol

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    1. I think your scavenger hunting must be fun, even to look for the item!

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