A Layered Mess - Working Through Stress

I don't know about you, but there are days where I feel like I would have been better off staying in bed. Yes, I'm talking about those days where everything goes wrong and you're nothing but a serious stress case. What do you do?

Scream at the top of your lungs?

Well, while this may work for some, it's not always the best option if you're not alone. You might scare the heck out of some or annoy others. Save this for when you're alone, in the middle of the woods somewhere or surrounded by pillows you can pull over your face.

We're going to explore how stress and anxiety (or any other kind of turmoil for that matter) can be relieved through art. We're going to continuously layer media on a canvas each time stress strikes.

Here's what you need:
1: newspaper
2: an easel or large work space
3: a 9x12 or 11x14 piece of canvas, a board or stretched piece
4: acrylic paints (as many colors as possible)
5: collage materials
6: plastic forks
7: brushes
8: gel medium
9: plastic gloves (optional)
10: containers of water (to wash brushes in)

Make sure you spread newspaper out around where you're working because the idea is to make a big mess. If you're working on an easel, be sure to spread the paper out below your work area.

Here's how you work through your process. The key is not to think and just to do. Some ideas include:
1: painting over your entire canvas with your hands (this is where the plastic gloves come into play, if you choose)
2: blotching paint on with brushes in no particular pattern or picture - just a spread of color
3: layering collage elements using the gel medium, then adding paint
4: drag the plastic forks through the whole piece or various sections
5: splatter paint on with the tip of your finger and the brush

Make it messy. Make it ugly. Make it whatever you need it to be.

Revisit this self made "stress board" each time you're feeling "out of sorts" and work your frustrations out on this piece. You may come to like what your stress board turns out to be, you may not. That's the not the point of this exercise. The point is to get it out.

Some like to work things like this out in their art journals and this is fine. However, the ability to work on a larger scale will prevent the feeling of being limited in terms of expressing everything in a thorough manner.