Monday, 1 February 2010

Art therapy

23 Jan - I attended an art therapy session organised by the psycho social department at National Cancer Centre.

This is actually a 2-part session. The first one is collage art and the second, held on 30 Jan 2010, is acrylic on canvas.

The art therapist and staff of the psycho social department provided the materials. All we needed to bring were our imagination, creativity, and probably no reservations.

We did a nametag as warming-up.

For the main piece, we were supposed to select a title and theme, but I don't know where my mind went and I must have attention deficit that day that I really went wild with my piece. After applying glue and slapping and pressing the pieces in place, I looked around and found that everyone else's was so neat and organised 'poster style', but mine was one big mess.

Upon completion, when it came time to tell a story about our pieces, I didn't know where to begin because mine was like, humm- I think it was anybody's guess and imagination. Main thing was I enjoyed myself no matter how my 'messterpiece' looked like!

My 'messterpiece'!

Compare mine to the pieces produced by the others :



30 Jan 2010 - 2nd part of the art therapy session - acrylic on canvas

The art therapist (I couldn't remember her name) brought us through a relaxation exercise, after which we were supposed to write or draw whatever come to mind, and that would be the theme of our piece.

When I was in school, I had only messed with poster colours on paper, and this was my first attempt at acrylic on canvas.

I wanted to draw lotuses, but I am no van Gogh nor Picasso and my lotus looked like a small kid's attempt. The canvas looked so empty, so I added in 2 swans in the pond. I thought that the sky looked empty too, so I added in some birds. I had the intention of drawing the birds flying to the left, but when I was done, all three birds looked like flying to the right instead. I don't know what happened, but well, at least they looked a little like birds, I think.

HW thought my brick wall was a bridge - yeah, I think so too.

My perspective was all wrong. I forgot the grass behind the wall, so it looked like my pond is suspended on a highland. I couldn't make the bamboo come alive, even with some tips from M, and errmm..., the size of the objects relative to one another...., oh well, 'nuff said.

With acrylic painting, one is supposed to lay on the paint thick, but I forgot and mine looked so 'see-through' with the canvas peeping through the paint.

Anyway, it didn't matter, because at least I managed to produce something. And this is it!


While we struggled with our pieces, my neighbour, LO who loves cats and has 2 at home, mumbled 'my cat doesn't look like a cat'. There were similar mumblings like that too, but we had a giggling good time and it was fun while it lasted.

I was among the last ones to finish and I didn't have time to take photos of the pieces done by the others.

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