join the mindful drawing movement!
join the mindful drawing movement
How can drawing be a mindfulness art activity?
To begin with, what is mindfulness?
According to the Oxford Dictionary, “mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.”
I find that both mindfulness meditation and drawing are activities that can bring awareness to the present moment, through the realm of feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations.
Drawing brings your awareness to the present moment, as you observe a subject (which could be something you are looking at in real life, in a photo, or in your imagination) and rendering it into a picture on paper.
pencil drawing of a shell by Rosa Phoenix
Here’s the process of the activity of drawing, as seen through a mindfulness lens:
First, get into your sensing state. Use your eyes to really take in all kinds of information about your subject.
What is its form or shape?
What sorts of features does it have?
What makes it special and remarkable?
What patterns, textures, bumps or marks do you see on its surface?
Where is the light coming from and where do you see shadows?
Where do you see lines or edges?
What colors do you notice, and how do those colors shift and change across areas of light and shadow?
Observing a subject so closely, looking for all of these details, enables you to go deeply into the state of feelings and sensations, and be present with your subject.
Contrast this deep presence with how we often are in our day-to-day lives, rushing through life without noticing details, colors, beauty or uniqueness. We can get so caught up in tasks and goals, that we don’t notice what’s special and precious about the present moment.
Next, after observing your subject while in a state of mindfulness, experience the tactile sensations of creating the drawing itself--the feeling of your hand holding the pencil, pen, charcoal or crayon, the friction of your drawing instrument making marks across the grain of the paper, the scratching sound it makes.
In moments of quiet, you can hear the sound of your breath, and you can become aware of your breath and its rise and fall in your chest.
Find the pleasurable sensations of the drawing activity. Is it the soft, rich blackness of the charcoal stick that you rub on the surface of the paper? Is it the colors you see in the scene you’re rendering, that light you up inside? In drawing, you can spend time enjoying sensory awareness.
pencil drawing of an apple by Rosa Phoenix
As you create the drawing, thoughts will come up.
There will be thoughts related to the creation of the drawing, thoughts that guide you helpfully through the process. These could be thoughts of observation, like: “this side is a little bit higher, so draw the line a little bit longer here,” or “the shadow needs to be darker in this area, so let me apply a little more pressure to my drawing stroke there.”
There could also be critical thoughts too. Some critical thoughts are constructive and helpful, like, “I drew this part too small, I need to erase and draw it a bit bigger.”
Then there could also be critical thoughts that want to attack you.
These are the thoughts of the Inner Critic, and they might say things like, “I messed this drawing up so bad. I’m awful, I have no talent, why do I even bother?”
Can you see how this type of critical thought is not constructive or helpful? This type of critical thought is actually even harmful and damaging. It doesn’t help you to improve the drawing, and it makes generalized, sweeping statements about your worthiness or value in creating the drawing at all.
This type of thought is very common, in fact it’s a normal part of the process, especially in the beginning.
You must not take this type of thought seriously.
pencil drawing of a komodo dragon by Rosa Phoenix
This is where mindfulness can help you in the drawing activity.
In mindfulness, you are aware of thoughts, yet you do not attach to them or necessarily believe them. You can simply let go of thoughts that don’t help you through the drawing process.
In the activity of drawing, you don’t just observe your drawing subject, you also observe the thoughts in your mind.
The more you practice letting go, the more your mental chatter will quiet down, and you will be less bothered by these harmful types of thoughts.
When you are able to become the observer of your mind, and can choose which thoughts you allow to occupy your mental space, that is when you have achieved a state of mindfulness, and you will experience greater mastery in many areas of your life, basically whatever you put your mind and attention to, whether it’s drawing, other art activities, work, or anything at all that you want to accomplish.
Because you will train your mind to work for you, rather than against you, simply by making these choices in each present moment.
When your mind quiets during the activity of drawing, that’s when you can become deeply engrossed in the drawing process.
It becomes less of a mental tug of war or resistance, and more of a pleasurable flow state.
You’re immersed in enjoyment of the process, relating to your subject through your senses, and rendering the drawing, also using your senses.
As you experience more deeply through sensory awareness, you become fully immersed in the present moment, and this is a state of such deep focus and awareness that it becomes blissful!
This flow state of the creative process is the great pleasure of drawing, and it’s the pinnacle of the mindful experience.
You don’t necessarily have to be drawing to reach this flow state, and you don’t need to be a zen master either.
You just have to be willing to be mindful of your thoughts.
Breaks between thoughts create a calmer, more peaceful mind.
When you reach that state of flow, you’ve let go of resistance and you’re fully present. This is a full experience of aliveness.
colored pencil drawing of a dog by Rosa Phoenix
And guess what? When you are mindful, you will spend more time in this state of flow, and since the state of flow is enjoyable and pleasurable, you will enjoy drawing more, and when you spend more time enjoying drawing, you will get better at drawing and improve and progress more quickly, because you love to practice drawing!
So, practice mindfulness in drawing, and allow the practice of drawing to help you to be more of a mindful observer throughout your life.
Would you like to learn mindful drawing?
I offer a FREE mindful drawing mini course! Get it here.
I also offer an 8-week live online mindful drawing class.
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