I often get asked how do you create healing art? That is one of those million dollar questions as each artist will approach it differently. It is also not as straightforward as it sounds. Let’s see if I can unpick it a bit.
How Do You Create Healing Art?
How Do You Define Healing Art?
The concept of ‘healing arts’ is wider than just creating images of course. It includes music, dance, poetry/writing and drama therapy. These all have a common theme as they are all about promoting healing, coping with change, wellness and supporting personal change.
Healing art in terms of creating images is both creative and intuitive. It could be an image made up of simple colours and textures that creates an ambient mood when hung in a room. A wonderful photograph of a scene in nature can be soothing and restful. Such as my image ‘Tranquillity Discovered’ shown above. I donated this photo to the Foundation for Photo/Art In Hospitals and it has now been used in Australia, Careggi Hospital in Florence, St. Paul Minnesota, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.
Healing art can be an image with a positive message as is the case with my piece ‘Meteor Shower Heals Earth’. This was a positive spin on a negative newspaper headline! Sometimes healing art can be a way to express an experience to share with others such as I described in my blog about my painting and poem entitled ‘Ben’s Angel’.
How Do You Create Healing Art – Examples
Protect The Children
The only way to really answer the question in detail that was put to me, ‘how do you create healing art’, is to give an idea of my process. I did this to some extent when I described how I created my painting ‘Protect The Children’.
How I created ‘Healing Angel’
Another example, although a one off as it was incredibly time consuming, is my piece ‘Healing Angel’. This went several incarnations to get to the final image that is available as a print today. The original piece was an acrylic painting on canvas depicting a life-size angel from the waist up with hands outstretched. Unfortunately, the original is no longer in my possession.
A Blank Canvas Can be Scary
I began the piece with the ‘scary bit’ which is the white canvas waiting for me to create something. I went on a wonderful retreat, more years ago than I care to remember, and during the art sessions our teacher addressed the scariness of a white canvas. When one of the students stood terrified to make a mark on this pristine canvas the art teacher acted quickly. She grabbed the canvas, threw it on the ground and rubbed it in the dirt. She placed it back on the easel and said “Not so scary now is it? Now just relax and paint!“. I always remember that with a smile when I have a hesitation.
Preparation Before Painting
I usually meditate before I start on a new healing art piece, and have a clear intention of what I am going to create before I make a mark. There was a concept I was working with, the idea to create healing art by designing an image that people could touch and interact with, which is why I wanted the angel to be life size.
I began by carefully drawing what I call a ‘creation box’, basically a geometric design for the placement in the image based on sacred geometry. See the example above which was created for another painting. Sacred geometry is based on mathematical concepts and is used in the design of religious structures and sacred art including mandalas. This initial layer within my design is time consuming, often taking longer than it takes me to produce the eventual painting.
At the time I created ‘Healing Angel’, I had a treatment room where I gave Reiki treatments and taught Tai Chi (I am both a Reiki Master and Tai Chi Teacher). The painting was deliberately designed for that space.
Painting ‘Healing Angel’
Next came the actual painting of the piece and the careful selection of colour including red to give a vibrant, energetic feel to the painting and shades of violet and purple for higher level spirituality. The final touch was the angel’s hands which are my own hands imprinted into the paint. Once dry and in place on the wall, I noticed that my clients were drawn to put their hands on the angel’s hands and feel the healing energy it produces.
Creating An On-line Version
But how do you make an image like that work on-line? Only a few people could actually see and touch the original. I wanted to make prints available. So, I carefully scanned in the original and then started using digital software to add textures gradually to the piece until I felt I had created the right mood. I removed the hands as the interaction was now visual rather than tactile, though I left the vague aura of the hands. With the online piece I wanted the energy to float from the image and create peace and wellness within anyone who sees it. The test is the final image. And I think it works, don’t you?
Where To Buy Prints
Prints of my painting ‘Healing Angel’ are available from:
Art Heroes with free or reduced shipping in Europe
Pictorem with free shipping in the USA and Canada; and
RedBubble with worldwide shipping.
Before you go
My name is Dorothy Berry-Lound an artist and writer. You can find out more about my art and writing at https://dorothyberryloundart.com.
You can follow me on Facebook.
Thank you for reading!
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