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Beneath the Surface

I’ve been pretty stressed out with school lately and I thought it would be neat if I experience art therapy myself.  I’m more of an arts and crafts person, so instead of doing a painting or a drawing, I designed and created a mask that portrays my emotions. The rough, dark, charcoal-looking, outside layer of the mask represents the hardship that I face daily and the colorful layer underneath represents the good things that I couldn’t see over my problems. By relieving my stress, I was able to realize that behind every adversity there is always something positive. The tear in the mask signifies that we have to look more than just the surface to see the better things beneath.  

The Buddha

Group Therapy #3
Topic: Relieving stress by painting

Painting by Steven Bailey

“Painting to me, is more peaceful and a very good way to express yourself through the use of various forms of techniques and the vast array of colors to choose from. “The Buddha" helped relieve my stress by transforming my stress into the movement of the paint brush in order to perfect the overall picture. Instead of thinking about what stresses me out, I focused more on what and how to paint.”

The Buddha by Steven Bailey




Vecindad

Group Therapy #2
Topic: crimes in Mexico


Drawing by Elizabeth Sandoval

Elizabeth Sandavol is a student at HSPVA that uses art therapy to
express the troubles that she's having with the crimes happening in
her hometown, Mexico. “As a little kid, before age 8, I wasn't aware
of the growing crime activities in Mexico. But now that I'm a teenager
I have to watch the news and hear the stories of 40 people getting
killed a week. This constantly causes great stress and worry because
all my family lives there. I chose to use thick brushstrokes of
acrylic paint because not only is that the texture of the walls I
remember, but also I wanted to portray a type of roughness or even
brutality that I now associate with those same places that used to be
vivid and safe. I also chose to add red dots to symbolize the drops of
blood lost every day in Mexico because of the violence. When I put my
memories and feelings of the Mexico on paper, I feel as though a heavy
burden is lifted. It's as though my journal/painting surface is
listening to me, like a friend," said Sandoval.

What else do you see in this beautiful artwork?  

Vecindad by Elizabeth Sandoval





Tsurii

Group Therapy #1
Topic: work stress
 
Drawing by Claudia Vargas.

“I chose to do the drawing in ink and pencil because it is the easiest media to achieve my final product. The lines twist around the branches naturally and they bring life and form to the tree. I personally love ink. When I drew this I was stressed out from work and other stuff. I like to draw things about nature when I am bored or stressed out because it helps me feel better and get distracted from the endless amount of work that I have to do daily,” said Vargas.

Tsurii by Claudia Vargas

 

Sketching to Relieve Stress

Sketch by Dung Nguyen

Art therapy uses different forms of art as a way of communicating. For Dung Nguyen, a junior at Debakey High School for Health Professions, sketching is a way of relieving his stress. Going to a very demanding high school, the abundant amount of schoolwork and homework is what induces his stress. “Around test days my stress level skyrockets. So whenever I feel like this, I get a blank sheet of paper and I just draw whatever comes to mind,” said Nguyen. For students like him, sketching random pictures is a way to convey his emotions and channel his stress. Would you prefer sketching or another form of art when it comes to stress relieving?

Art Therapy

Have you ever considered using art as a solution to your stress? Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses the different forms of art as a way of communication. If you have a difficult time trying to express yourself through words, then art therapy is the perfect resolution. We all know that stress is a common problem for teenagers to experience in their day to day life. Although encountering stress is not an unusual thing, experiencing too much stress for an adolescent may be damaging to the health. Exposing a problem through art can be done by making visual artworks containing symbols and images that convey the meaning behind the stress.