MessyJessyCreatesArt

 The Inner Child Project:   The Toddler Self 18 months-3 years Part 1  The Toddler is mobile enough to walk away from the caregiver and verbal enough to refuse and protest.  They are learning how to establish and maintain personal boundaries- emotional and physical separations from the caretakers.  This teaches you how to be independent.   Testing how much you  can participate in the outside world and still come back to your caretaker and  be loved is a dynamic you will carry into every relationship.   In The Inner Child Workbook , under the section for the Toddler Self, exercise #1 asks 5 questions  which deal with saying and being told no as well as honoring boundaries.  These question are meant to make you think about your ideas and behaviors now and how they effect your relationships.  Exercise #2 is an extension of thinking about how we carry these issues into our lives today.  This ...

The Inner Child Project- The Infant Self The first part of the infant self can be found in my previous blog post  https://messyjessycreates.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-inner-child-project-infant-self_28.html This painting is of me as an infant.  After working through the exercises for this developmental stage of my inner child, I could paint myself as a happy infant. According to Cathryn Taylor in The Inner Child Workbook, There are several steps involved in dealing with childhood pain which are used at each level of child development AKA with each of your inner children. Identify the pain Researching your pain Regressing to the feelings of your self at that level of child inner self Objectifying your pain Grieving your inner child's pain Healing your pain and reclaiming your joy Each of these steps is accompanied by numerous exercises to help you through this journey.  If you are really interested in healing, many of our adult issues come from n...

The Inner Child Project- The Guardian This year I have been doing some inner child work (see my other blog posts) and came to the point in the process where I am supposed to create a Guardian to look over and protect my inner children as I do this work.  I happened to be participating in a free mini-class by Ivy Newport (  https://ivynewport.com/spring-fever  ) in which we use our own portrait to create a guardian angel.  While I was working, it just hit me out of nowhere that I should be my own guardian angel- my grown self.  So, I finished the painting and call her "The Guardian" and she will join my other inner child paintings to watch over and protect all of the inner children.

 The Inner Child Project Day 2    This work comes from prompts found at Free Your Inner Child  which happens to be a free e-course.  I combined prompts from day 1 and day 2 to create my mixed media piece of art.  I always loved to make costumes, dress up, and play pretend.  I based my piece on this.

http://learn.effybird.com/

Book of Days Week 3 with Effy Wild http://learn.effybird.com/   Watercolor, Acrylics, Stencils, Posca Pans, Rubber Alphabet Stamps, Scrapbook Paper, Washi Tape My goal  for this month is to jump start my creativity with these classes: Expressive Arts with Shelley Klammer Moonshine Book of Days and Journal 52 The Inner Child Workbook     General Art Journaling Activities

I am using a Moleskein journal to record notes from the book.  Here, the notes are written for the introduction and the first week. http://www.healingwiththearts.com/the-book/  I found that the introduction was so motivational and actually looked into classes to earn certification in art therapy LOL.  For the culminating art piece for week 1, I actually used the first page from September's Scrapbooking From the Inside Out Kit- Inner Child http://www.scrapbookingfromtheinsideout.com/ .  I thought it expressed EXACTLY what the prompt was about!  As for the Inner Critic, I have done so many of those art journal prompts that I did not feel the need to do another at this time.  

Having found out in therapy that I needed to give my inner child a little more attention, I signed up for Effy Wild's Book of Days:  Self-Love Edition (like, the only one I have NOT taken LOL).   www.effywild.ning.com  My usual style of art journaling is quick and messy.  However, I felt the need to take my time and really do the work on these spreads.  It really does help! Cover Page for my art journal Week 1:  Setting my intention Week 2:  My True Colors I own a print of Tamara Laporte's and it inspired me to do this spread.  I just love the colors and it seems like this girl could be me :-) Week 3:  Self Love Primer I go the information for this spread from a wonderful article https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evil-deeds/200806/essential-secrets-psychotherapy-the-inner-child Week 4:  Flower Moon Boon- A Wish upon a sunflower Week 5:  Self Care steps I own a copy of the book by Jane Davenport "Drawi...