A Little Art Therapy Never Hurt Anyone

I bit the bullet.  After a year of indecision, I decided it was time to get the dreaded hip replacement that I had been putting off for over a year.  So when I finally had everything scheduled I thought that I should have something that I could do easily to pass the time while I was recovering.  I knew I wouldn't be able to work with my pressed flowers at first because it would be too hard to sit at the work station in my itty bitty studio. I was a little burned out on crocheting at the moment, so I thought that I would just get some sketch pads, and pens and pencils and draw and doodle my time away. Between drawing and reading I figured I would get through the boring part when I couldn't get around too well.

Sometime in January I ran across a book that looked interesting and proved to be just what the doctor ordered (not really, I just thought it looked cool). One Zentangle a Day by Beckah Krahula not only proved to be an interesting book that includes a 6-week course in Zentangle, but it was the best art therapy I could have found.  Once I started following the book I was completely immersed in another world and could really ignore all of that post surgical discomfort for a while.  I have done a little meditation in the past, and found that this was really quite similar. Once I began practicing the repetitive patterns I found myself so immersed in them that I forgot about everything around me and the pain that I was having.

I'd recommend this form of "art therapy" to anyone. You don't need to be an artist to learn it. It's really easy to follow along in the book that I used or any number of other books written on Zentangle. I'm continuing to enjoy learning my new art form and would like to share a few pieces that I've posted in my shop with you.