Module 2– Color and Layers

Read:

  • Conscious Grieving: “A Note on Yearning”, through “Contemplations” (p. 29-45) and Appendix pages 199-207 “Why it’s worth exploring the five stages and other models”

  • Art is a Way of Knowing, Chapters 4, 5, and 7

  • Spirituality and Art Therapy, Chapters 3 and 10

  • The Color of Grief, article https://scalawagmagazine.org/2023/09/the-color-of-grief/

  • Painting through grief– “Art helps us with things that can’t be solved intellectually.” This artist chose to “Follow the color” through her grief experience. https://www.peonyandparakeet.com/painting-grief-and-loss/

View/Listen:

Suggested materials:

  • color in various forms– crayons, oil pastels, watercolor tubes, bottles, or pan (I like Prang for an inexpensive set), acrylic paint, paintbrushes (I like using a water brush for portability and ease, but otherwise having a 1”, 1/2” and a couple of round brushes in various sizes is a good start)

  • glue sticks (Scotch permanent is my favorite brand), artist gel medium or mod podge, masking tape or decorative tape

  • varied collage elements– colored paper (card stock, magazine pages, tissue paper), old book pages, tracing paper or vellum, decorative tapes and ribbon, junk mail, etc.

  • face paint sticks

Create:

  • Gather a watercolor set or pan and various items to engage the color (brushes, stylus, salt, pencil or pen, paper towel, etc.) On a large piece of watercolor paper, generously apply water (the paper should be visibly wet in the areas you want to add color) and then play with whatever colors match your emotional landscape. Let it spread and drip. Layer it with more color once it dries. Scrape it with a pencil or an old gift card. Sop it up with paper towel, removing color instead of adding it. Add coarse salt and see what happens. Notice what is pleasing and what is frustrating, what you resist and what you are drawn to. Let your emotions interact with the process. Breathe.

  • Create a large grid (maybe 5 x 5) on a large sheet of mixed media paper lightly with a pencil. Using oil pastels, fill each square with a different color. Press hard, transferring thick color to the page, leaving some margin between colors. What emotion most fully matches each color? Label them if you wish. When you’ve filled in to your satisfaction and with enough grit, begin to smudge the color between, into the margins, with your fingers. Let them mix, get your fingers dirty. Our grief doesn’t have clear lines or tidy boxes. What touches? Does sadness mix with confusion? Does anger want to talk to fear? Journal from this experience when you’re finished.

  • On tracing paper, create one continuous line self-portrait each day by looking in the mirror and slowly drawing your way around your features. Use a different drawing implement or color each day to create variety in the look and feel of the practice. Note the emotion in your face, feel the tension as you draw, pay attention to any resistance or sensation in your body. Layer these drawings one on top of the other and journal what you discover in the flow of your daily experience.

  • Feelings don’t come one at a time, and our grief is complex and layered. Collage is a medium that uniquely meets this reality in us. In collage we can cover or reveal what we want; we can create doors and windows in our creating that show something in a new way. We can cut paper in thin strips, tear large pieces, crumple tissue paper, or punch holes to make variable-sized circles. Using a large piece of mixed media (or other hardy) paper begin by journaling through your current feeling landscape. Journal about a loved one or pet you’ve lost, or another circumstance you are grieving. If you have a lot to write, turn the paper and write at a 90-degree angle over top of your previous writing. When you are finished, mindfully reenter your journaling with colored pencils or markers and circle, underline, or highlight what has the most energy for you. Begin engaging the paper with collage, covering over your journaling and noticing the flow of your emotions. Do tears emerge? Anger? Are you reluctant to cover parts of your page? Listen interiorly to what’s happening. Note the edges of your collage pieces, the size of piece that fits your inner movement, and the ways the colors interact on the page. Keep layering, and even drawing, writing, or scribbling over the pieces until you feel you’ve expressed fully what was needed.

  • On a day your feelings are right at the surface, use face paints to create your emotions on your skin. Look in the mirror and meet your heart and spirit with color and compassion.

Reflect:

      • “Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke. What does this quote offer your grief experience? How might working with color, line, image, and other expressive medium help you “let everything happen”?

      • Take some time in your journal to write all of the emotions present in you right now. From the top of the page down, begin with what is on the surface, most present to your awareness, and feel your way to your innermost self. Sometimes just taking time in silence and mindfully meeting our present moment with curiosity and not judgment can open the door to something we weren’t otherwise conscious of. If this exercise wants to continue, choose a color to go with each of these layers.

      • As you’ve engaged the readings and resources, what are you becoming more aware of in yourself? Are memories surfacing? Fears? Resistance? What artists or authors are you most drawn to? What do you know to be true of you and the ways you engage your grief?

      • Search for and read children’s books on loss and grief. Some examples: The Sad Book, by Michael Rosens; The Rabbit Listened, by Cori Doerrfeld; Lola’s Heart, by Alexandra Boiger. Notice your inner response to the color, image, and style of the artwork. Choose a single book to read daily for a number of days in a row and notice how your response changes.

      • “We all have a very rich inner life happening inside us constantly; creativity is putting this inner life into action, letting it out somewhere. It’s not passive, it’s active. It’s like opening the gates for something that is building up.” ~Alexandra Boiger, author of Lola’s Heart.

Christine Hiester