Self Love For Your Sketchbook
Happy Color Snack Sunday, sweet friends!
Valentine’s day is approaching, and even though it’s a mostly a made up holiday (thanks, marketers), I do like the idea of love being at the forefront for a little while. I think it acts as a great reminder to celebrate all kinds of loves in our lives, romance and roses aside.
It’s also a time to reflect and recommit to loving ourselves, by taking tiny steps.
Just “loving yourself” may seem like easy advice to give, but it’s definitely a lot harder to practice. But that’s the thing though, the more we practice, the better we become.
Loving yourself is more of a journey than a destination. With each experience, with each choice we take, we get to practice more or less of it.
Today, I wanted to share a few tips and idea on how you can actually practice self love by keeping up with a sketchbook.
Your Sketchbook Is a Safe Place To Fail
It is probably the most obvious of reasons – but keeping a sketchbook is a great way to have a safe space to practice failure. As perfectionists, failing is the last thing we want to deal with it. But in order to break out of this cycle, the self fulfilling prophecy, we need to practice failure. You can practice this by trying out new art supplies, sketching something you’ve thought you never could before. Making marks just for the sake of it and seeing where it takes you.
What happens when you purposely fail is that you become ok with the idea of not being perfect. You start accepting yourself as being a work in progress – a work in progress is never finished, it’s never perfect, it will always require refinement. And as a result of being ok with that idea of imperfection, you start showing yourself a little more self love.
Artsy Affirmations For Your Sketchbook
Another great way to use the sketchbook to grow self love is to do pages or sketches that illustrate acts of self love and self care. Maybe you can come up with a mantra that you can write in fun and creative lettering. Maybe it’s illustrating some of the ways you show love to yourself already and just need to reinforce it (it could be treating yourself to some new art supplies, going out on an art date, taking care of your health).
Keep Your Eyes on Your Own Sketchbook
I know it can be tempting to try to compare your sketches with those you see online. But think of it this way – it’s not fair to you and not fair to them. First of all, you never know the struggles someone else went through to get to where they are. Maybe they’ve had 20 years of sketching under their belt and you’re just starting out. Maybe they never show the shitty art they produced but only select the very best of their work, which obviously takes time to develop. Keeping your eyes on your own sketchbook and not comparing yourself to others, can help you realize that you all you ever need is right there inside you. It is worth loving this version of yourself – the one who is experimenting, the one who is exploring his or her creativity.
Self Love Is a Muscle
Just like creativity is a muscle, so is self love. In order to feel it and live it, we must practice it and find ways that honor it. It’s not something you can just acquired over night. It’s a conscious decision we make and overtime it builds it up inside of us. For example, you can use the practice of a sketchbook as a way to claim that you love yourself because you are dedicating time to being creative. Once you claim that statement as true, any time you engage with your sketchbook and explore, and fail with your sketches, you’ll know that you are working on your self love muscle.
Find Your Happy Place In Your Sketchbook
Sometimes we can’t control what happens in our lives. But we can control how we react or act about it. Maybe you’re stuck in a rut with your life, or going through hardships. Grab that sketchbook off your shelf and go into it like you go into a happy place. Having a sketchbook as your happy place means that you can fill it with all those fun things that bring you joy – rainbows? Bright colors? Flowers? Unicorns? Dream destinations? Jumping into your sketchbook on a sad day can help you feel a little better if you’re entering your happy place and have a safe space to explore and be creative.
Win By Showing Up
Relabel your idea of success as just showing up in your sketchbook. Maybe for you that means playing around with colors. Maybe it’st making some marks. Maybe it’s glueing a collage or some flowers or just drawing plain circles. By considering it a success with just showing up, we are practicing small wins. And feeling small wins all play into the idea of loving ourselves more deeply.
No matter the technique to practice self love, remember that at the end of the day, it is a practice and a journey. It becomes easier with time. But the more evidence we acquire that we are worthy of loving ourselves, of loving others, the fuller our lives will be.
(some of these posts may contain affiliate links, which are at no extra charge to you, but help me keep running this blog)
Art Supplies Ideas for Your Sketchbook:
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- micron pens
- posca markers
- tiny sketchbook
- Alli K’s book for inspiration
- Your creativity
