What Do You Do When You're Depressed? Art, Of Course!

I have suffered from pretty severe depression the last three and a half years or so.  I've dealt with highs, lows, self-harm, and even suicidal thoughts.  It's been difficult and trying beyond explanation. One of the ways I tried to deal with it was through artwork.  I find it incredibly therapeutic and it's a great release of emotion.  It's a way to convey things that are near impossible to explain verbally or things that are just too difficult or personal to talk about.  Here are my depression/darker pieces, let me know what you think by leaving a comment!

 This following piece is the only one I am going to give a description about, because to try to explain the rest in words would take away from what they are trying to say.  This next one was created from a short story that I wrote, which basically describes the doors as blocking my way from going through the pain in order to get better.  You can't see it in this photo, but behind the black inside the door are many small words that overlap, saying things like, "Dead," "Gone," "So alone," etc.

This is probably one of my most personal pieces, along with the second picture on this post, the one with the blade.

Trees and Flowers

 These pictures range from 2012-2014, I believe, and are of trees and flowers.  Flowers were the first images from nature that I really began to draw.  I loved doing them in any medium, from pencil to watercolor to acrylic paint.  Trees soon followed and I fell in love with drawing them, especially bare trees during the winter time.

Inspired by a tree at Hope College

This first picture is done with oil bars, if you don't know what they are, they are like big cylindrical bars that are made up of something like oil paint.  That probably isn't a really good description... If you want a real description of what an oil bar is, go here. Oil bars are incredibly fun to use, very messy (that's where most of the fun is, in my opinion!), and vibrant.  I only used black and white oil bars here, but I love the result.  Oh, and do you see the human figure in the tree?  Was it intentional?  I don't know, and I'm not gonna tell!

This next piece was done with pencil, and was drawn from a photograph. The flower is originally red in color, but I decided to do it in black and white.  Noticing a theme here?  It's true, I do like monochromatic pieces.

                                            

Pencil drawing of a flower I saw in Spain

This flower below was done in watercolor and it is one of my favorite, if not the favorite, flowers on the page.  I paid close attention to the shading and made sure I defined the edges of the flower well. 

           

A rose from my grandma's garden

The next flower is... hard to see.  I'll admit it, but I wanted to include it anyways.  It was really the first time I had ever tried cross-hatching with pencil.  Cross-hatching is when you make straight lines in one direction, then go over it in another direction(s) to make the value darker.  It was not my favorite way to draw with pencil, but it was definitely interesting!

The same rose from my grandma's garden

You guessed it! The same rose, again, from my grandma's garden

This final flower is, I believe, the first time I ever really experimented with pastels.  I had a fresh new set but I didn't know what to draw. So, I turned to a subject that I'd already drawn several times before, in several different ways.  Is it weird to say that my favorite part of the work is, in fact, the background?  Because it is.

This final picture was not based on a
photograph, if I remember correctly.  In fact, I think it came straight out of my head.  Maybe that's why I don't like it as much...  Anyways, this work was done with watercolors, which is pretty evident by the rather translucent looking colors.  Let me just say, landscapes are really difficult for me!

Pastel Portraits

This was my first real foray into the world of pastels, and I decided to go with trying some portraits.  Once again, I worked off of photographs for all of these, but in the end, they don't really look like the people they're based off of.  Ha!  I'm just not that good at this point.  These were done in 2012.  

This first portrait was supposed to be of my younger cousin Rosanna.  But to me, it just looks like a generic face.  I mean, let's be honest for a second.  Drawing faces is hard.  It might not seem like it, but go ahead and give it a try.  I bet it'll be harder than you think! I know the nose is too big and long, which makes the face look very long, but you know what?  I like it anyways. :)

My cousin Rosanna

 The next portrait doesn't really look realistic at all.  But, you can definitely tell who it is supposed to be, so I guess that's an improvement over the last portrait!  I made this as a present for my friend Elizabeth.  I think this was in my second semester, sophomore year of college.

My Roommate Elizabeth

 This final picture does not look like my friend Jes at all, except for maybe the eyes.  The hair is too orange for her, because at this point she was mostly still a blonde, and to be quite honest, I've had several people ask me, "Is that a picture of a girl or a guy?"  Haha.  Them having to ask definitely tells you something, and it's not good...

My friend Jes