 Literally, you would know that I am a professional YouTuber because of my camera issues. I think I'm literally perched on a jar right now. Anyway, welcome to a new video. You're sort of precariously perched, but I think that'll work. Okay, so for this first part of this video, I just wanted to do a little explaining. We're going to start a new series that has to do with doing art for therapy for mental health. And I'm going to start out by saying and reminding you all, I am not a mental health professional. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a counselor. I do encourage you to seek out professional help if you're struggling with your mental health. I'll try to find some links for some online places where you can research getting some help down in the description below. I'm doing what's working for me on the advice of my professionals that I'm talking to. I do have a counselor and I am on medication. I have generalized anxiety disorder and depression for those that don't know. So anyway, I forgot when I first started my YouTube journey that mental health and doing art for mental health was one of the things that I did do and that it worked and I forgot to keep doing that and now I'm back to doing it and I do love it. So anyway, I'm going to show you some new things that I'm doing and share my experience with you. Hopefully you decide to follow along and if you do, please share. I do have a Facebook group, a life of art and self expression. The link is in my link tree list of links down below. I encourage you to share it over there and tag me in the post if you want to make sure I see it. I'm also on Instagram and all that stuff too. And if you do videos on this, I would love to see it. So make sure that you tag me or tell me or something. Anyway, let's go down to the table and let's get started. I'll explain what this is in a minute. So years ago, and I mean like 2016, 2017, 2018, I took this Moleskine kayak and I used, I was trying to use up ink sprays or yeah, like delusion sprays. So fun fact, they're not my favorite thing. And I did have some and I wanted to use them up. So I took one of these journals and I just sprayed random colors on every page, squished the pages together and then stuck something in between them while they dried. And then I went through and drew over whatever was on there. Now, when I first started it, I really tried to like force an image into what was on there in the background. This, of course, is being what was in the background. Most of the time, not all the time. I really tried to not think about it too much and just draw what I was inspired to draw or when I was feeling most of the time, I felt like I was forcing it and I really wasn't opening up. Sometimes I just was inspired with words. Sometimes I was really, yeah, I was just really trying to figure out my voice and what I wanted to say. I did do a photo shoot for Yahoo Small Business a long time ago and I did have this journal at the photo shoot and they had me do a couple of drawings in it, this being one, this being another one. They weren't really what I was feeling. At some point, I picked this up recently. I rediscovered it and said, you know, I really should finish this. And I started again with doing drawings that I felt like I was forcing myself to do. And then I slowly moved towards seeing what the ink splots spoke to me, what they were inspiring me to draw or in this case, write or journal, what was I feeling about what was in the page. And slowly it became more about what I saw on the page and less like thinking and analyzing and just drawing what I was feeling. And it became a very therapeutic process for me, sort of like in the Rorschach ink blot test where the therapist will have you look at ink blots and what do you see in the ink blot. And instead of just saying what I would see, I started drawing what I would see. And I found that very so therapeutic that I'm going to, I think keep doing it. So I'm working on a couple more journals with ink blots or, you know, spots already distressed on the page. And we are going to, I think that was my phone, we are going to prep another couple of journals. Now, again, in this one, I, and I'm going to show you how I do this is going to be part of the process is going to be a multi part video series. This first one, we're going to just prep our journal and I'm going to just do this like quick flip through. You can see what I'm talking about like towards the end. I was just, you know, oh, that looks like bubbles to me and I drew bubbles on a fish. Oh, I see a face. Draw face. Oh, I see abstract like triangle slices of pie, like whatever. Yeah. So I'm going to show you how I prep the journal in this video. And I'm going to find someplace safe to put that one. Okay. So you can use any journal. I want you to use what you have. Don't go buy anything new. This is a Moleskine Cayet. The paper is pretty thin, but I was okay with that. I knew I was going to work single-sided. I didn't care for blood. You can use a bigger journal. I do recommend one with not too many pages so that you just have this to work on like for a month and then see if you still like it. If it's too many pages and you're like me, you're going to get bored halfway through. You're never going to finish it or you'll get discouraged or like, I don't know what the deal is. Most of the time with big journals, I never finish them. These are traveler's notebooks. Now this, I've already started and this is coffee mixed with a little bit of walnut colored ink. And I did that and I let it dry. I did it yesterday. And now I'm looking at it and I'm feeling like it's not enough color. The ink blots, although there are blots on here, it's not enough of what I want. For whatever reason, I'm feeling the blues and I'm going to put blue. I'm going to show you what I do. This is one I did a few days ago and I started it the same way. It's the same kind of journal. Instead of doing it the way we're going to do it, I mixed up a little cup of water and some of the same coffee and walnut ink and I used a pipette and I just dropped it on. I got it really, really wet, so wet that the paper started ripping. I was okay with that. I just put masking tape on it after it was completely dry. I did know right away that the coffee wasn't enough color and these teally blue colors you see are pigment powders. And I have a bunch of those that I'm just trying to use up, so I use those on here. Now the only problem with some of these pigment powders is the glittery ones, I don't know if you can see that. They kind of rub off a little bit, but that's okay. It's totally okay. Pieces of paper are just completely missing. It's going to be part of the journey of this journal. Again, we're going to work on creating something to work out our emotions or feelings or mental health about whatever is going on in our lives based on what we see on the page, what we're feeling on the page. It's not about creating perfect art or anything. That being said, if you're just into junk journaling, this is a great way to distress a journal. Anyway, I love the way this one turned out, but it did get very wet. So anyway, this time I have decided to stick with spraying like I did the first time. So this one, I mixed up the walnut ink and coffee in this little spray bottle. I used up the whole bottle on the journal and when I was done, then I just washed the bottle out, which we'll do again. One of my issues with sprays is that they clog all the time, which drives me up the wall. Now, if you don't have, maybe you don't drink coffee, you could use tea, maybe you don't have any pigment powders or inks, anything that you can dissolve in water and get watery, a little bit of acrylic paint, a little bit of, maybe you have a re-inker, maybe you have, this is an acrylic ink, but maybe you have a little bit of watercolor paint to dissolve some in a bunch of water and use that. You can use anything, use what you have, look around your art room, what do you have that's going to dissolve in water and create a color that you want that you're feeling right now. Maybe you want to do a few of them in different colors. I do recommend that you either use spray bottles you're okay with tossing out or as soon as you're done that you clean the bottle out because if it's acrylic, it's going to dry and clog the tip, like kind of guaranteed. Get an old cookie sheet. I do line it with a piece of paper because this is going to get inky and this could be collage paper for a future project. So anyway, we're going to open it to the first double set of pages. Maybe I'll start here. Okay. So we're going to take our bottle, which already has water in it. I'm going to open my acrylic ink. There we go. So I'm in there. I want to put any other colors in there. Let's see. I want to put a little bit of gray in there because that's just what I'm feeling and I know why. This is like a purpley gray. We'll put a little bit in and see how that looks. Put the lid on and then shake it up. Yeah, that's good. I like that color. I just put a little bit in it. Just took a little bit of the brightness out of the blue. Okay, and then and then have something next to you that you can put in between the pages. Now, I just use clips, I'll show you, I just use like these. I've got a bunch of different kinds of journaling clips around the art room and you'll see as we go along, I just put them between the pages so that they don't stick together too much. You're going to stick a little bit and you'll get like little spots where the paper is going to want to rip. If it rips all the way through, just put a piece of masking tape there. It's part of creating this random series of marks on the pages that you're later going to do some art therapy over and journaling over. So anyway, we're going to just go with it, but yeah, this will help them from sticking completely together in theory. All right. So now we're going to just like that. You might find you have to do this a few times with a few different colors in order to get, you know, the kind of look that you want. Maybe you want to make a much darker color because you're not feeling these lighter tones. Do what you're feeling. Think about, you know, where your mental state of being is at the moment and what's going to work for you and then maybe turn on some music or your favorite podcast. You'll notice I'm alternating where these clips are. That's just so that I can get through the whole book in one go around, but maybe you just want to do one or two pages and you don't you're not impatient like I am. And you want to just do the whole thing and get it over with and let it dry. Now once you do this, it's going to take a couple of days to dry completely. See here's a piece that has torn, but you know what, it's part of the journey of this journal and the journey of my mental health. And that's OK. The only problem with doing it this way is your fingers get sore. If you want to do more than say one color, pre-mix all your colors. You can spray all the different colors on here and then just keep going. I don't clean these clips off in between. And so they may transfer some of the coffee color or other colors onto the paper. Totally OK with me. So just keep going until you get the whole book done. Break out if something rips. Just let it go when it's done and dry. Get some tape. Maybe you have some washi tape that you're feeling needs to go in here. Maybe you just have plain masking tape and like I did and that's what you're feeling. Maybe you're feeling you want to collage some paper over the rips. Don't be super precise about it. Agonize about it. Just again, go with how you're feeling. Almost. We're almost there. I can tell you we're ready. There's a couple spots that are ripping. You can't see them, but I can. And that's OK. You might get to the point like I'm starting to get through with the sprayer. We're not wanting to spray because there's running out of water. OK, once I have it to where there's some spray on all of them, whatever's left in here before I go wash the sprayer out, I dump on there. So now we're going to just let it dry and let it go. And when it's done, we'll get started on our Rorschach test or ink blot art therapy on the journal. And we'll see where we go from there. So I want you to prep your journals, let them dry. And I'll be back in the next clip before we end this video and I'll show you what the result is of how this looks. And we'll do some taping because it's going to need some masking tape. So I'll be back when this is dry. OK, guys, I've got lots of stuff on my desk I have to deal with, but we're going to do this first. So this is the journal that we died. And yeah, that's fine. And I'm going to just flatten it a little bit, but it's only going to do so much. Anyway, we're going to go through it and we're going to find places like this where the paper tour. And we're going to just put some masking tape and tape up all of those spots. The tape is going to be part of the background, part of the spots and marks that are going to hopefully help us do some art and journaling in a way that helps us work through whatever it is we have to work through. You can use colored tape if that's what you're feeling. I am really just feeling using masking tape. So I'm going to use that. This is how I do the spines when they rip. Just FYI, push it all down good. And then I'm not worried about these little tears on the edges. But like here we go. So let's fix that. And I'm going to go through every page, page by page. And I'm going to fix each and every one that I feel like I need to. And maybe you're not going to feel like you need to put tape over any of the holes. Because maybe you want to work with the holes as part of what you end up doing on the page as part of your therapy. That might work too. But anyway, for me, I want to fix the holes and I'll be right back. So I want you to make one or two journals. And then join me in the next video where we do some ink blob art on one of the pages. And again, maybe you want to have your journals be more colorful like my first one was. Maybe you want it to just be all one color. Maybe you want to use paint instead of inks or water soluble materials. You can do that. My suggestion is use something with a fairly matte finish. There's another spot that needs tape. Use something with a fairly matte finish because it's easier to draw and write over. If you use traditional acrylic paints that are glossy, they can be a challenge to write or draw over. So I don't necessarily recommend them. So just keep that in mind. That's why I tend to use ink for maybe I would use a gouache or a matte finish paint if I was going to go that way. If you're going to do paint, too, you can only do probably one or two pages at a time without really having a huge problem with the journal and all the pages like completely sticking together. So experiment and play. Grab a journal that's just sitting in the closet that you probably know you're never going to use for anything else. Use what you have. And if you have any questions, comments or concerns, leave them down below. I'm going to prep for the next video. I'll see you over there. Don't forget to stay safe, stay creative, stay healthy, do what makes you happy. And if you are struggling with mental health issues, please don't be afraid to go out and get some professional help. Again, I am not a counselor or a therapist of any kind. I go see someone for that. There's no shame in needing help with if you have mental health issues. I will try to find some sort of a link or something down below. But if I can't and there's nothing there and you guys have a some kind of reference website that you use, please let me know and I'll add that in and go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it. And I'll see you later. Bye, guys.