When you color a piece that make take a few coloring sessions to finish, it gives you some good opportunities to take inventory of how you may be feeling. By the time I sat down to color today, I was quite tired.
I can tell my coloring is a little slower, and slower marker strokes emphasize the tired wobblies. I notice a little twinge of tension – reminders that a lot of my perceptions of being tired are still tied to times when it was important to try to keep working ever harder and pushing through longer hours than felt comfortable.
A few deep breaths and refocusing on the present page. There is no need to hurry. There’s no pressure to deliver perfection if I’m a bit sleepy. There’s a lot of lovely, happy shapes here and they look so pretty in these colors.
Flashes of other memories – reminders that sometimes being tired feels very good. It really is just perception as to whether tonight’s tired feeling is assumed to be a burden or if it is a celebration of having had a full, satisfying and tiring day.
In the very small moments, when it is all about a little coloring shape, things gradually untangle. Being tired at the end of a day will display itself in the way that you color. In my experience, being tired is a really cozy and comfy feeling if it’s all just about me. When it’s also about a work deadline or not feeling that everything planned can be accomplished – that’s when it’s a source of tension. Coloring sort of spans both of those worlds for me, so sometimes it takes a little extra attention to ensure that I let my art be art and not work.
In someone else’s experience, it might be that art time merges with care taking, business thoughts, physical illness, sadness or all kinds of other stuff. You can be coloring away and suddenly realize that you feel “real life stuff” nibbling away at your coloring stamina and ability to relax and refresh. Spending a few moments just coloring one single small shape, looking at the paper and the color, being in the right now instead of five minutes down the road – that where coloring really shows its ability to nourish and restore.
I like to try to end each coloring session with my full attention on the very last shape. No matter how tired I might be at the moment, that sets such a sweet tone for everything else that may follow.
Little green loopies of relaxation and calm. A good way to end the evening! (Today’s coloring is from Transcend (Angie’s Extreme Stress Menders – Volume 4) colored with Copic Sketch Markers.)