Draw Yourself Calm: Draw Slow, Stress Less

Amy Maricle's book Draw Yourself Calm as well as her lessons on her website, Mindful Art Studio, have brought me so much joy!Her method of teaching is so encouraging, inviting, approachable, fun and calming.I have built a daily sketchbook practice around taking time for myself to explore her patterns every morning which always make me feel calm & more confident in all of my mark marking by slowing down, listening to my intuition and trusting myself to take my art to new levels.The simplest patterns often take me to the most magical places.The book is beautifully laid out & while she shows us how to do each pattern beautifully, she also simultaneously invites & encourages us to innovate and make it our own.

Amy Maricle has a simple way to help you slow things down, to open your creativity up, and to ease stress and anxiety. I’m a graphic designer by day and deal with a lot of deadlines. Stress and anxiety sometimes plague me. I used to love to paint and draw ever since I was a child. I remember losing myself in a painting in high school and college. It was wonderful. But once I started working all of that went away. I “didn’t have time” anymore to paint and create art. Well that’s because I only thought of the big projects. The ones that took a lot of time and commitment. But Amy’s approach is much different. It’s a way to create art that not only takes little time, but also eases that stress and anxiety that sometimes seems to overcome me. I love the way it slows me down. I can literally spend 5 minutes or an hour if I want. And what I really love is that I realized through “Drawing Yourself Calm” is that I DO have time to create beautiful artwork. It’s a great approach for not only trained artists like myself, but for literally anyone of any age or ability. There’s no feeling of right or wrong, good or bad…it’s just a small way to make some big changes that positively affect your life. My one and only criticism is the font in the book is a bit too small. As a designer myself, I recognize that it may be very difficult for people with poor eyesight to read a lot of this book. But otherwise it’s beautifully put together and a “best purchase” for me. I highly recommend it.

Quick and easy art to calm your anxiety. Very fulfilling and easy to do.

First off, I am not an artist. I've been following the author's blog for about a year and like her approach to making art, but I've never actually tried any of her prompts. I pre-ordered her book when I heard about it and just opened it yesterday. It's great! So far I've tried three of the patterns, one of them multiple times, and her instructions are very clear and each step is well illustrated. Unlike some books that have long lists of vital supplies, she says all you need is a .01 micron pen (cheaper at my local art store than on this website, AHEM!) and a pad of paper -- as she says, spend 10 bucks for good materials to see if you enjoy this, which seems reasonable to me.As well as the patterns, she has helpful suggestions for wedging little bits of art-making into the day, as well as some jumping-off points for taking the patterns further. Some of the font is light and small, but that's not the author's fault. Overall, great book and highly recommended for someone who wants a way of making art that's accessible even to a beginner (and I would imagine beyond the beginner level as well).

This book is a beautiful piece of art in itself. There are so many slow drawing options and the directions are easy to follow, with the opportunity for endless creative ideas. I love how Amy gives permission to create in all sorts of ways, even to be ugly. Since doing slow drawing I have found more time for art in my life and have been more mindful of finding my own ideas for patterns from nature. My children have been using the book as well and it’s so fun to create with them, as everything is so simple and inviting.

This book is beautiful and the art is simple and very accessible for anyone to do. Amy's online classes have been vital for me these past couple years and this book echoes that exactly. Here she's equally encouraging and inspiring, and for me, this is a highly effective method to let go of my endlessly spinning thoughts. Also, her encouragement to use small amounts of quality materials helps to make this a sensory, embodied, experience. Truly, you can't get this "wrong," and if you do this regularly you have a good chance of setting your imagination and creativity free. It's so beautifully simple--my copy arrived yesterday and I've already have completed two little pieces, and can't wait to do more.

The ability to slow down and focus on the details of creating simple patterns is truly calming. I have been participating in Amy’s weekly online workshops for over a year. This book is both stand alone pattern play with clear directions, and a wonderful companion to her Slow Drawing Pattern classes. Check out all she has to offer on the Mindful Art Studio site. I am more than pleased with my book, and I recommend it for beginners or experienced artists.

I like the idea of this process to break down time into snippets. I did not care for the point size of the type and the color of the type as it is not black. It is kind of a gray color which is very difficult for me to read. So just going slowly

I use the book to relax and do my own design from hers.

I saw this tutorial teaching an online class with an online art journal group I belong to and she was amazing. She showed that she had created a mini art journal filled with these incredible designs in small samples which were very effective. She made her journal interactive with flip sections, peep hole sections, open door sections, pockets with pieces of these art in them and it was so interactive and impressive. Some of the samples were slightly raised I think maybe using sticky back small foam pads often used in card making. Unfortunately she doesn’t teach creating her designs into an art journal format but she does teach the simplicity of her art designs which are so beautiful. You can make your own small journal and create similar additional elements with doors, cut out windows, pockets, sliders, spinning sections using brads etc and incorporate her designs.I love the fact that she’s decided to also incorporate this idea as a calming method of doing art. We desperately need to see art and being creative as an excellent way of helping our mental health, our concentration, managing our breathing, calming down our central nervous system, taking our heads away from daily stress and anxiety by increasing our creativity. The idea of Zen drawing has been with us for over 25 years and Zen art for hundreds maybe thousands of years. Teaching children how to do this, as a way of calming down their emotions/anxieties of daily life would be an excellent idea. Too many children are developing mental health issues, struggle with mental health disorders and this would be a lovely soothing experience to help them focus on the meditative practice of doing simplistic art where you repeat the pattern. This book would be fabulous for people struggling with chronic pain, health issues, life challenging issues, veterans who struggle with PTSD who may be interested in being creative.I would say this book would be great for creative children up to senior adults. If you’re planning on giving this book to children you may need to give them a spot of guidance to help them make the most of this incredible book, even though it’s quite explanatory and it takes you step by step.Children may need to be shown how to create their own designs and where in nature and out in the world they can find patterns, ie striations in stones/rocks, bark, moss, holes in trees, leaves, markings on insects, marks on nature, pot hole covers, signage, cloud formation, waves in the sea, pasta, grains of rice, carvings, stamps, dinosaur bones, fossils, markings on snail shells, markings on sea shells, markings on butterflies and birds, marks made in the mud by animal feet, shapes found in engineering like screws and nuts, marks made in metal, marks carved on stone. You can send children on a quest with their own journal to find as many designs as possible, create them on paper, it can be very simplistic and create more of these designs singularly in repetition or interlinked, children love to discover new things and new ways of thinking. It’s an excellent way to get children away from technology, to open their eyes and view the world around them which I fear they don’t do enough. It important to involve children with the world around them, to learn about patterns in ecology, marine life, wildlife and the importance of conservation and respecting our natural habitats, geology, geography, fauna and flora, natural history, natural decay ie wood, skeleton leaves, different fungi etc. Patterns in man made objects, carpets, wallpaper, textiles, pictures, paintings, jewellery, buildings, furniture, symbols, flags, tiles, stain glass windows, the list is endless. Get children to pick up objects and connect with them and find all the details around the object, this is mentally stimulating, educating and calming. There are natural history museums that allow children to pick up and explore certain objects as they have realised how much more educational it is for children and adults to not just see an object but to touch it also.This book will take you by the hand and teach you step by step the process. I haven’t included too many pictures of the process with respect to the author, but I did want to share her incredible way of thinking not just creating art but how it can help the mind and body too and this is why this book is so needed in today’s world. I think we would be much nicer/kinder people if we took time out to do some art to help our mental health, calm ourselves down and take our heads out of our problems, and slow down our breathing to help adjust our thinking and thoughts, it doesn’t mean sitting for hours doing this, just taking 5 minutes here, 2 minutes there, sitting on the bus, talking on the phone and most importantly taking time out just for yourself whenever possible. You can draw small pieces 3 inches square, you can draw much larger pieces. You can do this indoors and it’s more fun doing this outside by taking a small journal, mechanical pencil and a rubber/eraser and drawing whatever patterns you discover outside. I always carry a mini journal and pencil just for this purpose and it’s excellent to teach this idea to children from the earliest age they can draw so they can stop when things are becoming overwhelming and use this as a tool to calm down, reconnect with themselves and the world and carry on more relaxed. They can do this in their playground, at a restaurant, sat on the bus or at the beach or park bench or a meadow, at a park, out for a walk, by a stream, river or the sea etc.For those artists who are taking their art up a level, you can use this book in conjunction with mark making using different implements to create a mark on the page. It can be using a fineliner pen, a brush pen, calligraphy pen, dip pen using different styles of nibs to create different effects, a fine paint brush, a cocktail stick/chop stick/a twig etc dipped into ink or acrylic inks. There are so many amazing inks to play with including multi coloured inks in 1 bottle, some included super fine metallic mica, there are many different ink companies around the world who make these wonderful inks ie Wearingeul inks, kiwi inks, Ferris Wheel inks, just google them to find out their incredible ranges and where to buy them etc. You could also try interferance paints in acrylic and watercolour as well as fabulous metallic and pearlised water colours paints made by Coliro. The multi coloured watercolour paints are particularly amazing on black paper, so don’t just think you are limited to using white paper to do these designs. With these types of watercolour paints you need to add the water and let the water sit in the pan for a couple of minutes to activate. Then using a small paint brush you which you can paint/transfer the paint to the underside of a dip pen nib or mark making tool.For those who are interested in embroidery or textile art you could do these designs using stitch with an amazing variety of different types of threads and some areas would be nice incorporating beadwork.For those who are interested in goldwork embroidery you could use these designs in 1 and 2D designs using pearl purl, fine gold smooth, fine gold rough, passing thread in particular, bright check, fine gold threads and spangles. You aren’t just limited by using gold, these types of threads come in multi colours too. Hand and Lock supplies some of these threads, so does The Golden Hyde goldwork company. There are some sellers on Etsy too.You can use these designs to do samples in which ever media you wish to work in and then go onto developing your own ideas creating your own style of work. Once you get into the method of doing these designs, the possibilities are endless. If you wish for additional inspiration there are a lot of linear, circular designs etc available on the internet to give you additional inspiration.You can incorporate these designs also into a base shape ie a circle, triangle, square, oblong etc.You can create a base shape design and continue these designs outside of your base shape too and make them look free floating.I sincerely hope you will be just as inspired as I have been by this fabulous book. We need more books like this in our world today!I hope this amazing artist/author continues to create more stunning books in this range.

Macht viel Freude.

Beautiful book

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