Drawing about thinking
And reading The Artist's Mind
One of my frequent topics in my sketchbook is mental health. Specifically I like drawing and writing about coping skills that work in the real world. My sketchbooks are a kindof commonplace book where I record things I want to remember and think about further. It's where I practice thinking outside my habitual boxes. It's where I feed my good wolves. It's where I draw and write things that are on my mind, or things that *could* be on my mind. It's where I play with visual and verbal possibilities. Here in today's newsletter is an assortment of my sketchbook pages that relate to this ongoing topic of mental health.
This first cartoon sketch is a foundational drawing for me and my life and work. It has been reproduced in this book I illustrated Dr. Bob's Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit.
Here below are other unpublished (beyond this newsletter) sketchbook pages on the topics of good mental health and coping skills.
Here's another favorite cartoon sketchbook page that is in the Dr. Bob's book mentioned above.
Towards my desire to maintain a mentally healthy creative life I've even drawn what I call mind-maps to describe to myself modes of thinking as they relate to creativity - here's one.
See what I mean? Thinking processes, mental health, coping skills and creativity are a regular topics in my sketchbooks. These are such a regular topics that I wrote recently on my blog about having discovered the new book The Artist's Mind by
because I have “radar” for books about thinking creatively and cultivating good mental health skills. I contacted the author and asked if I could chat with her about her book and, long story short, I'll share our conversation on August 7th as a part of the book tour! (Please see also the book tour stop at !)
One of the thoughts I gleaned from The Artist's Mind by Kathryn Vercillo is that an integral part of living a creative life is ongoing care for your own mental health. (Here's a link to one of Vercillo’s newsletters that illustrates my point.) Every creative person - just like every human being alive - deals with stressors that can affect their mental health. For creative people our brains are our tools for creativity so caring for our minds is caring for our tools.
Oh, wait I almost forgot, poetry, stories and food are my other regular sketchbook topics … which I share here too… but aren't all of those in a roundabout way about mental health and mind-care too? 🤔
Anyhoo, here's a drawing of a sandwich….
I wish for you a pleasant day. 💚
My first thought when I saw the title of your post come across my email was, Oh, no, not mind mapping!! Mind-mapping is a tried and true method for the prewriting stage of the writing process. I gave it to my students as one of several prewriting options, but I didn't attempt to teach them how to do it because I've never been able to do it myself. My mind just doesn't work that way. I look forward to your interview with Kathryn Vercillo!
Thank you so much for highlighting Dr. Bob's Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit and giving so many examples. It sounds ideal for my teenage daughter who is having a lot of mental health issues, and is a very visual person. I have ordered the book. I also appreciate that you do not push the idea that she should talk to friends, since many young people with mental health challenges, like my daughter, do not have any friends (especially since the isolation during the pandemic lockdowns).