The questions that are explored in this Creative and Expressive Arts in Nursing submission are: Do we as nurses and helpers need to allow time for our own personal exploration to be more effective healers and enhance our aesthetic knowing?
This visual presentation describes personal exploration done in the spring of 2001 after breast reduction surgery during a period of recuperation. It helped me to focus, reduced perception of pain, and aided in healing b sharing the healing approach with others and myself. The series of drawings became known as the “Gesture Series” – 29 drawings. To complete the series it seemed important to have words with the images.
It is through interaction, connecting and honouring each other’s creative process that we are truly seen and heard, where healing and creativity takes place. When opening ourselves to our fellow humans, it allows us to experience what we feel and to hear what they feel.
In the series I wanted to capture the figure, and the feeling or illusion of continuous movement, and emphasize the idea of the soul gesture of a movement, qualities of colour, and the spiritual aspects of colour and light. The colour was layered emphasizing form and shape. I was inspired by Matisse’s line drawings of figure, by movements in yoga and tango dance. Colours were applied in a quiet, meditative way, laying colour and waiting for images to appear. The colour and coloured lines were done after the black and white drawings. This way of working not only emphasized the line and coloured lines, but also created the movement of form adding another dimension to the line drawings. For two weeks I worked on the coloured pencil drawings using large and small curvilinear movements on the page, watching as the three primary colours – yellow,
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