Art Therapy?

The month of October has seen my Zentangle classes take off.  I've done one-on-one sessions as well as group classes.  People are pleased with their art as well as the process of creating it.  However, I've noticed that there is sometimes more going on than people having a playful drawing session.  Some students put themselves down.  My role is to gently encourage them that perfection is not the goal with this art.  Lines are not to be perfectly straight.  Curves don't have to be perfectly symmetrical and round.  A misplaced line or curve is not a mistake... it gets transformed into the sum total of an intriguing nonrepresentational work of art.

As a new art teacher I have sometimes been surprised at the self-doubt and self-criticism of some students.  And in those moments I can see a fragile person who perhaps is very demanding of himself/herself in day-to-day life.  My art sessions may be rare moments when that person hears and is shown that he or she is fully-capable... there is no possible way to fail.  Sometimes it's hard to convince them that they're not failing in that moment... it's a new activity, a new artform for most.  So their frustration and negative self-talk flows out.  I've found that it's up to me to field those responses and without being fake, encourage the artists to be patient with themselves and trust the process.  My job is to remind the artists to BREATHE as they draw... and focus on making one stroke at a time.  When the entire art piece is completed and shaded, there is satisfaction and even pride.  Quite often students have shared that they caught themselves smiling as they got into that focused drawing.  Others finish the session with the words, "I'm hooked on this!"

Recently I was a bit too ambitious in thinking I could teach a large class how to execute the super-cool basketweave pattern called Huggins.  My first verbal instruction was to draw a nice matrix of small circles.  Before I knew it, some students had drawn tiny circles all over the place with barely any spacing.  There was no way to connect them properly to form the basketweave pattern.  So I simply suggested to those students that they continue to fill that space with circles, large and small.  Huggins became Tipple and all were happy with the effect.  No mistakes! 

What I love most about teaching Zentangle is the happiness it brings my students.  I love the smiles as they admire their art at the end of the session.  I love their sense of pride and accomplishment and discovery.  I'm gratified when students carry some of the relaxation ideas from the art session into their daily life.  

Some of My Students This Month