De-Stress Through Abstract Illustrations

If you’re ever feeling stressed or just looking for something to free your mind with, creating art is the perfect tool you need in your everyday life. Doing something creative can aid communication, relieve stress and help arrest cognitive decline. The main factor which causes the beneficial effects is not about a person’s creative skills, it’s solely the process. Therefore, I will share my best tips and tricks on how to get started with what I personally prefer — abstract art.

Tools

Whether it’s a piece of paper or an iPad, it’s up to you to find the tool that suit you best. Take what comes in handy, but I would personally prefer an iPad, duo to the great benefit of not having to buy any brushes, acrylics or watercolors. I’m using the app ProCreate on an iPad Mini and it’s working beyond great!

The creative part

I always start my creative journey by looking and analyzing my surroundings. Often in the room that I’m sitting in. Look around and see if there’s something that catches your attention. It could be a connection, a texture, a shape or the shadow that hits the wall. I start by selecting the area/object I want to paint and a suitable color. Never draw from your imagination, you will likely get disappointed on how it turns out, and that’s why we want a constant object in front of us.

Here I chose a regular corner on a wall, adding the lights and shadows to give depth to the painting.

The process

The importance of this is NOT to make something esthetically pleasing — it’s the creative process and the fun you have with it. In ProCreate I use an acrylic brush and then the smudge effect (finger button) to even out and add depth.

Add more layers

Find more objects, corners, patterns and start making a whole of your artwork. A good thing with abstract art is that it can be whatever you want it to be with your chosen objects. I never have the slightest clue of how my painting will turn out at the end, you just go with what you like. Remember; Don’t be sad if it doesn’t turn out as you expect. I delete and correct multiple things in my paintings before getting the right fit.

Many thanks for reading my piece. I hope it gave you some advice to practice when you need a simple and easy stress reliever.