Your Journey
Art Prompt: Using art materials, create an image that represents your timeline or journey through life or focus on a specific experience.
Materials: Oil pastels, pastel paper
This is one of my favorite directives because it forces you to think about different times in your life: your challenges and your areas of growth. Your image can represent your journey through life, a specific challenge you experienced or a snapshot of a certain timeframe. Using abstract shapes, colors or images can represent the various experiences that you want to portray in your artwork. I worked with oil pastels on this image, but it can be really cool to use collage materials to represent the full journey of your life.
Within my image, I decided to focus specifically on a particular challenge in my life instead of multiple experiences that led me where I am today. Using a black permanent marker, I represented the timeline of this particular challenge. The ranging widths of the ink represents the everchanging levels of pain throughout that time. The yellow and orange pastels were chosen to illustrate the joy that is woven throughout the pain and also happen to be the start of the challenge. Each color chosen represents an emotion that wraps throughout the ink to emphasize the number of emotions (often conflicting..) throughout this time in my life. This directive helped me narrow into this challenge and explore both the positive and negative aspects of this challenge, and reflect on how I feel today looking back at that time in my life.
Journal prompts for further exploration of the directive and/or image:
Explore a challenge in your life that brought you self-discovery and growth in the end.
Was there a time in your life that you were not thinking about but it popped up while creating the image? What was it and why do you think you have not thought about it?
Was there a person you thought about often while creating this image that has been either consistent or inconsistent throughout your image?
How does it feel to look at the image you have created?
Tips:
Do not overthink the art directive. Jump into creating with your first thought and allow the image to form itself.
Explore the artwork when you’re completed and see what you notice in your colors, method, imagery. Sometimes you’ll have new insights once you’re finished creating.
Materials will be suggested, use whatever you have access to or materials you’d prefer.
Work as little or as long as you’d like.
Don’t create thinking of a product, focus solely on the process. This may not be something you’d like to hang on the wall and that is perfectly fine and often preferred 🙂
You may not always be able to reflect on your image and understand what it means. Sometimes just simply engaging in the art process is therapeutic enough.
While these directives are designed for deeper exploration of self, sometimes they may cause one to feel overwhelmed. These prompts should not replace therapy. If any of these prompts bring up unsafe emotions and you feel you are a danger to yourself or others, please call 911 or go to your nearest hospital.
