Summary: This page covers my third art therapy session and all the art created within it. you can also find links to informational pages for each individual art piece.

Flow State

Art Therapy Session Date: 6/13/2026

This art therapy session was a blaze of creativity. I experienced flow to an intensity I’ve never experienced before and it was magical. My goal is to capture that flow state more regularly and for shorter periods of time (my art therapy sessions are hours long).

Process Notes

Taking inspiration from the “Creative Workbook” section of the individual artwork pages, I want to breakdown the process for how I did all my art therapy artwork. I hope this makes tangible that flow-state headspace from art therapy.

Planning Notes

• 06/12/26 - I know for sure I’m going to use Shuttle Art Tempura Paint Sticks for this. I need to make sure I have loose paper ready to grab. I don’t know how much I should cut. I’ve been making 2 pieces each session…so we’ll see how much I feel like cutting.
• I need to organize everything up and make sure I have space and surfaces to work.
• 06/13/26 - Decided to cut 5 pieces of paper. Seems like a good amount. I can’t imagine I’ll need more.

Progress Notes

• 06/13/26 - It wasn’t enough paper. I ended up just grabbing some old sketchbooks and literally tearing out pages to work on. I need endless paper during this process. I need to not worry about my art supplies…so future sessions should preplan for the actually supplies better and test/check them beforehand.
• I ended up working on a ton of pieces at once. Like 6 or something. 1-4 is pretty normal for me but 6 was pretty intense. I think a big part of the increase is because tempura paint sticks need to dry or they become tacky after too many wet layers. It will even peel off if I work on it too much. So I necessarily need to wait between layers, which causes me to work on more pieces so I can keep doing art.
• But it’s not just that, more pieces means more ideas come out. When I’m really in the zone, I need to be able to get out as many ideas as possible.
• Scribbling is a really big part of this process. I don’t tend to preplan these pieces, I just draw what I feel or see. Scribbling helped release a lot of art block and “blank page anxiety.” My husband helped a lot by looking at my art and seeing images within it. More than half of the artwork created during this session w

Completion Notes

• 06/14/26 - I decided to put out ALL the paper left in my scrap letter sized Graduate mixed media sketchbooks (the site of my old Doodlecillin and Doodle Bufonidae sketchbooks). The Graduate paper works really well with the tempura paint sticks. I also decided to keep the full sheets intact, and since the sketchbooks are sewn, they are larger sheets folded in half. So I have double letter page spreads, i.e., approx. A3 sized paper sheets. I didn’t cut them in half because I like working in double page spreads, but I also can just work on each page individually if I want it to be a single page. No matter what, I’ll cut them in half.
• There were a few pieces I didn’t complete or didn’t end up liking and abandoned entirely (three to be exact). Not all my pieces need to be amazing. Maybe I can turn them into something nice? Will reworking them actually work in my favor? They’re trash now anyway, so what’s the harm?
• A big part of this process what my husband being supportive and invested in my art. It’s hard for me to find internal motivation sometimes but he gives me a lot external motivation, and right now, that’s enough.

Links to the Art

Preview	& Link
→ Reversible Fish	→ Butterfly Supersaien
→ Artist’s Hand	→ Let It Hit
→ Boo, Kay?	→ Cinnamon Rolls
→ Too Seen	→ Neon Lightbulb
→ His Eyes	→ My Wings
→ Mr. Hermit Krabs	→ Badger Badger Badger

Artistic Themes

There were several themes I noticed come out in my art and the ideas I had: animals, eyes, and spirals & movement. (For more about the various commonalities in my art, check out my Commonalities In My Art page!)

Animals

A lot of my pieces reflected living creatures. Life is something I tried to capture a lot in my pieces.

Humans

I don’t know what it is but drawing people has never really interested me. Maybe I found it too hard and just never developed a taste for it. Even so, I do attempt it every so often and I don’t think I do too bad. I’ve watched a LOT of YouTube tutorials on drawing characters.

So it makes sense that the only people to come out of this session was me and my husband.

Other Animals

I love drawing animals far more than I do people. Animals inspire me. I feel like they are easier to mess up without getting too wonky in their anatomy. I also just love animals in general, and nature. So it makes sense that they’d dominate my art. I tend to prefer sea creatures, bugs, creepy crawlies, and reptiles to land mammals, and that is reflected in the art created in this session.

Eyes

The eyes in my art therapy pieces are definitely trippy and seem very “awake.” They’ve seen things.

Eyes are a subject I have practiced for decades at this point and are one of my favorite subjects to draw. They represent a lot about how I perceive the world and how the world perceives me. For more about eyes in my artwork, check out my Windows to the Soul page.

Movement

Movement in art is skill I am so happy to be practicing! A lot of my art lacks movement because of how precise and idealistic everything is drawn. I try to have perfect lines and everything colored in exactly, but art therapy has allowed me to break out of that and practice actual movement and emotion.

Every single art piece in my art therapy sessions has movement, but these two have some of the best and most intense movement, so I’m using them to illustrate what I’m talking about.

There’s flow, there’s energy, there’s movement that takes you from one side of the page to the other. Art therapy has broken down a lot of walls.

Spirals

Spirals probably best capture my attempts at expressing movement. I like adding spirals or centering spirals as the main focal point of the piece. Spirals also easily convert into eyes.

I think spirals also represent confusion, overwhelm, and anxiety (like when I experience an OCD spiral). They are a common symbol in my art.

Introspection & Lessons

The hardest part of being “in the zone” is leaving it. At some point, I had to go to bed. The art therapy session gave me a ton of motivation and inspiration, but I need to make tangible what I found emotionally in those sessions, and that’s the hardest part. Because art therapy sessions are only a fleeting moment in time. If I can’t capture the magic within them to learn how to be happy and love my art, then what are they for in the first place? I need to use these reflections and skills learned during the session and make them tangible in my day-to-day life.

But how do I do that? What are tangible things I could do to help bring that flow state back?

Hidden Secrets of the Flow State

What I really captured in my sessions was a sense of freedom, a maelstrom of motivation, and excellent vibes.

Sense of Freedom

• Freedom to explore without worry of mess. The large ohuhu marker pad paper taped together (2 sheets) to form a protector for the desks so I can go off page and not worry about edges. (random idea: maybe those sheets, once covered in media, can be cut up and worked into more art).
• Freedom to mess up without worrying about waste. I think using scrap paper or old sketchbooks I’ve deconstructed could work really well here. Like, I could gather all the paper I’ve bought but didn’t like for my main artwork and use it for these flow sessions. That would lessen the pressure to make something stunning and would make me freer.
• Ruin it, then make it better. Anxiety of the blank page is so prevalent amongst artists. A blank page is intimidating because of it’s endless possibilities. So a good way to get rid of that anxiety is to “ruin” the page by scribbling on it first, then drawing on top of that. The opaque, solid design of tempura paint sticks makes this process even easier. I don’t have to do ALL artwork like this when in flow, but I should certainly start any artistic sessions with scribbles.

Maelstrom of Motivation

• Gotta continue the art therapy and introspection sessions every so often. I don’t want to rely on these sessions for all my artistic endevours, but they are useful to help motivate me and refill my motivation tank.
• Watch other artists create art. Look up ideas and inspiration, watch YouTube videos of people creating or reflecting on art.
• Continuous work for the continuous flow. I think it’ll help to be able to work on as many pieces as possible to let all my ideas come out. That means having a lot of paper.

Excellent Vibes

• Mental calibration. Positive vibes start with positive thoughts. Part of why I love the art therapy sessions is the lack of expectations that come with creating freely. I find myself second guessing so much of what I do that I get lost in the details. Go in with no expectations, just creating without limits.
• Music, television, and video. The same or similar music to the art therapy sessions. The same or similar lighting and color scheme. Same comfort and relaxation. Not the whole formal set up and preparation, just something to set the mood.
• Release the mental load. Make sure that I don’t have things weighing on me. Get things done with work or chores before jumping into the flow.
• Husband support. My art is heavily fueled by my husband’s love of seeing it. I love makign things he is awed by. I think having his participation in ideas and general vibes would be helpful.