Art For Mental Health and Wellbeing

22 Apr

So what’s my story?

All of my life I've been interested in and actively producing art. It started at just 5 years old on my very first day at primary school. I’ll share that story with you one day.

Throughout my school years art was my favourite subject. I joined the army at the age of 16. Throughout my time in the army I drew most of the people I met whether they asked me to or just as candid observation.

When I left the forces and returned to Civvy Street I continued with my passionate interest in art on and off whilst always having a day job. I tried my hand at most styles of art over the years and experimented with many mediums.

In early 2020 the whole world seemed to just stop due to the Covid 19 pandemic. I have a number of physical health issues and I take lots of meds that have an adverse effect on my immune system. As such, along with many other people I received the Government letter telling me that I was considered to be high risk and therefore would have to stay at home and shield.

For the very first time in my life I was at home, unable to go to work. Initially the Government told us 3 weeks, then 12 weeks, then months. To begin with I relished the time. It was like a holiday. Of course the long term reality was actually a nightmare. Elderly people separated from their relatives. People unable to visit their relatives as the country was locked down. Weddings, special occasions had to be cancelled or postponed for a long time. Relatives were going in to hospital in their thousands and not ever coming home.

For me personally the long lockdown gave me time to think. Too much time! Time to remember past events some of which were quite traumatic. So in the relatively short period of time from being sent home from work to shield in March 2020 to October 2020 I had become quite ill. I was diagnosed with PTSD, Clinical Depression and Severe Anxiety disorder. Treatment began, more pills, counselling sessions etc. Come December 2020 I actually felt worse than I did in October. I had become agoraphobic.

During all of the previous months I had an easel with a blank canvas on it and oil paints and brushes all neatly placed and every morning I would go in to the conservatory, stare at the canvas a while and walk back in to the house extremely disappointed that I had no interest in doing what I had loved doing all of my life.

Over the months, at times when my head felt in a slightly better place I took to watching YouTube art videos. In particular hyperrealistic graphite art. I found two artists in particular who’s work just blew me away. Kelvin Okafor. Kelvin loves human faces and his graphite drawings are simply stunning, extremely detailed and realistic. More like photographs taken by a highly trained photographer! www.kelvinokaforart.com and Jono Dry. Jonos art focuses mainly on the human form. Again graphite is his tool of choice. www.jonodryart.com

So over the months I gradually replaced my oils and canvases with high quality graphite pencils, Fabriano Artistico hot pressed paper, Kneadable Erasers, cotton wool, battery powered fine detail erasers, fixative etc.

In December 2020 my wife Amanda persuaded me that I should resign from my day job and focus on art. So on January 4th 2021 I resigned and that very same day I started my new life as an artist! My first drawing was titled The Circle of Life and depicted a heard of African Elephants inspired by world famous wildlife Photographer David Yarrow www.davidyarrow.photography

It was my first attempt at realism. To this day I'm still trying to perfect hyperrealism. I’m getting there!

My first drawing took me around a month to complete. About 120 hours as I recall. It was far from hyperrealistic but was certainly pleasing to my eye.

The next mental health counselling session was over the telephone. I told the psychotherapist that I had started drawing. He asked how that was going. I told him that after many months without a routine I had finally managed to put one in place. I’d get up, shower, have breakfast etc. At 9am I'd put Ken Bruce on the Alexa and start drawing. The second that I started drawing it was as though someone had lifted all of my problems and taken them away. I described it as being totally focused on the drawing and completely zoned out from everything that was going on around me. The music became a background sound, the space around me felt safe, I felt euphoric, happy, very happy. The psychotherapists reply was, don’t ever stop drawing!

So that’s my continuing experience of what art can do for Mental Health issues. Naturally there are times, fleeting moments when I'm not drawing where I can feel the darkness coming back but it is just momentary. Before I found drawing I was stuck in a permanent bubble of fear, terror, confusion, huge sadness. Now it's momentary which really is not a place I never expected to find myself in ever again.

Having said all of that just occasionally my PTSD for no apparent reason gets very bad. As I write I’ve just come out of a month long crippling episode. I always have faith that it will pass and today I drew for 6 hours. I’m back.

So what about You?

If you struggle with your mental health and whether you can draw or not, whether you love art or not, do please give it a go. It really doesn’t need to be an expensive hobby and who knows, you might actually be good at it. The benefits to your mental health are honestly endless.

You can find helpful tips on joining a local art therapy group on this .pdf document from the Mind website.

Also here’s a link to more very useful information from The Mental Health Foundation

If you would like some detailed information from me about starting to draw look out for my next blog.

Have a great day. Be kind to yourself xx