Even after years of drawing and painting, I still have the Fear! The Fear of messing up my work by adding the wrong stroke or colour or doing anything that might make my piece look crap! The thing is, if I gave into that Fear, I'd never grow as an artist, I'd never give new materials or techniques a go, I'd never try anything! For sure, sometimes trying new things can lead to unpleasent (or unsatisfactory) results. But with art, if we switch our goals from making 'good art', to just having fun, whatever doesn't bring us joy leads us to just trying again, having more fun, and allowing curiousity rather than perfectionism drive us. I've been working on and off on this piece for my neice (rhymes! 🤣) for a few months. It's nearly finished but there are things I'm not happy with (the background colour isn't vibrant enough) and there's a new technique I want to try on the face. The Fear is telling me to leave it as it is, that it looks great and if I make any changes, I'll end up wrecking it. But my curiosity over what it will look like if I make the changes and try the new technique are bigger than the Fear! And if I do mess it up...I can always start again! What are some of your Fears when it comes to your creative expression? How do you overcome it? Is your inner artist desperately wanting to get out? What's stopping them?

Hey, I'm Andrea and I'm an author and artist. Creating Art has been a life long passion for me, but one of the things that breaks my heart is hearing people say "I wish I could be an artist like you!" Which is why I'm offering 'Art from the Heart', a series of art workshops where anyone, with any skill level, can join in the exercise and create a beautiful piece of art for themselves! Not only can you discover your inner artist, but hopefully you will enjoy yourself by using your creative talents in a few different art mediums! Making art has also been a big part of my healing journey. In my younger years, I experienced a lot of trauma and struggled with mental illness and drug addiction in my 20s. While I still have difficult days with my mental health, I have been clean of drugs for nearly 22 years! Creating art has helped my healing in many ways: 1. It enabled me to express hurts, emotions, memories and ideas when I couldn't use words to get those things out. 2. I learnt different art exercises that I could intentionally adapt into a healing practise for myself to process some of my inner pain. By using art as a healing tool, I could move towards a life free of past emotional burdens. And know when things do get difficult, I can use these tools to express and explore what I'm going through. 3. I discovered ways I could use art to visualise future goals, dream for better outcomes and shape the healing I wanted in my life. I'm not an art therapist but I do have lived experience with trauma and as an artist, have used art and the exercises I'm offering here as part of my own healing journey. That's why with every exercise, I'll give you the instructions on how to make art just for fun, followed by the option to 'go deeper', that gives you the choice to look at some of your hurts and use the art exercise as a healing tool. Sometimes you might want to make art just for fun, that's great! But there might be times when you feel ready to go deeper. You have the freedom to choose what's best for you.