Elemental: Nourishment

Lenten art exercises for tired people

Note: This was originally posted 03/18/2021 as part of my Art Out the Dark newsletter. If you’d like to read the other posts in this series, you can read them all here.

Last week’s theme was nourishment. We didn’t have any participants—I believe that whoever needs to be there will come and even I was struggling to show up to my own thing that evening. Earlier in the day, however, I was practicing the exercise with Cole over our friend’s church beer release. Sitting outside, doodling on the backs of old receipts, casually chatting about what we love and how it nourishes our mind, body, and souls. The whole point of this series is it’s a starting point for creativity and connection. 

In the spirit of nourishment, I’ve been trying to make space to ask myself what does my body, mind and spirit need at this time. I’ve been feeling a little more numb and exhausted than usual—blame it on the time change, allergies, the state of the world, etc. We’ve had a lot of conversations in our house lately about what it means to rest versus recover, how sometimes you need the latter to get to the former. Feels very apt to this season.

Nourishing Sketches 

Start by drawing representations of things that nourish your body, mind, and soul all over your page. Then in a different color or on a different color paper, draw where your body, mind, and soul crave nourishment. Cut all these out and collage them together as a reminder to pay attention to what giving health back to yourself looks like.

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