Pop! Goes the Damsel

It is so bizarre seeing art about my stress when my life wasn't as stressful as it is now. It is like standing on the other side of the looking glass.

Something-something resilience, I guess.



The funny thing about this one is that I was really just intending to make it hyper-detailed. Instead, I ended up making a painting that is so tightly-wound it looks like an anime character mid-battle. When I let my mind wander while I paint, some pretty interesting things happen. Usually I paint something entirely different than what I intended (e.g. the dozen times I sat down to paint Darth Vader and instead painted cartoon characters, abstract garbage, and a bunch of cats) and just go with it.

I painted three other paintings that night. The other two were totally normal for me: a Sailor Moon painting and a cat. But while art is a great therapeutic activity, it can't do it all. In security we call the need for adequate protection "Defense-in-Depth" which basically means that you need to have several backup plans in order to lower your risk of danger. Stress relief is much the same way, you need "Relief-in-Depth" where you need to do several different stress-relieving activities. You can't just pick one thing and think it'll address all of your issues. I mean, it's not as bad as when someone suggests I address my agonizing chronic back problems with essential oils. However you should be doing multiple things to reduce your stress. When they suggest more sleep, less caffeine, eating better, stretching, yoga, massage, physical therapy, chiropractor, etc. they don't mean "pick one." The more you do, the better you'll do. I mean, unless you use essential oils and other homeopathic remedies.

As an aside...I love that I got ahold of a ream of dot matrix printer paper. I have been working my way through it, 99% of which has been using crayons, markers or graphite. I don't know what possessed me to use paint on paper, but it didn't actually fare too poorly. Dot matrix paper must be made of stern stuff- I have tested watercolors on a lot of different papers and none of them held up this well. I'm not saying it is good- certainly not frameable. But I've had cheap watercolor-specific paper that didn't work this well, and I didn't even prep it first (you're supposed to pre-stretch paper before you put paint on it). Laserprinter paper is absolutely not this hardy- yes I have tried.