If you know anything about my story you know that I originally discovered drawing and coloring as a way to deal with and manage chronic pain. Art has played a wonderful role in helping me get through difficult episodes of pain–one of which I’m going through right now.

As I sat down to do some therapeutic art I decided to share with you a small and simple art exercise that I often do when the pain is too bad to draw or color something complex–I create color swatches. They require very little thought or concentration; rather, they allow me to just focus on the beautiful colors and the feel of the pen as it glides across the paper (which is one of the reason I use gel pens–they’re easy on my hands.) And this is usually enough to get my mind off of the pain and bring me some much needed distraction and joy.

So, whether or not you’re someone who suffers from chronic pain, creating and coloring swatches can be a great way to relax and experience a little bliss. 🙂

-Jennifer

If you have found my video to be helpful, please click the thumbs-up like button and then click “subscribe.” I’d love to hear how you use art to manage pain or reduce stress so please leave a comment below.

Also, here is a link to another article I wrote about how I use coloring for pain relief: https://www.coloringbliss.com/5-steps-to-coloring-for-pain-relief/

Video Transcript

Hi, this is Jennifer Stay from Coloring Pages Bliss and I’m going to talk a little bit today about art therapy and pain management. If you know my story at all you know that I suffer from chronic pain and I do a lot of art in order to help myself cope with that pain. Over the last couple of days my pain has flared up and so I feel like I’m dragging through mud.

So I’ve been reminded again how much art helps me to cope with my pain and there’s something I’ve been doing lately that has really been very therapeutic and I thought I would share it with you real quick and let you enjoy it as well. It’s creating color swatches. It’s very simple but it’s very relaxing and it has been really fun, and you don’t have to think, and you get to enjoy a creative process, and you get to enjoy pretty colors, and its really nice.

So I’m going to create some color swatches with some new pens that I picked up. I went to the art store after a doctor’s appointment yesterday and picked up some new Sakura Gelly Roll pens. I also picked up a new white Gelly Roll pen that I’m going to make a swatch out of too that I’m excited to try.

I also stopped in at the dollar store the other day and picked up this new package that I found of gel pens that I want to try too.

So I’m excited to make some swatches and show you just how relaxing it is to lay ink down onto paper, and maybe you can try it next time you’re not feeling good.

One of the things I love about gel pens is that they go on so smooth and easily onto your paper, and so you just relax and it doesn’t take a lot of effort if your hands are aching. They just go on so nicely–that’s why I like my gel pens (well there are lots of reasons I like gel pens.)

Today I’m working inside my little sketch art kit here that I showed how to make in another tutorial–you can check that out here. I’m going to tape in a little piece of black paper here to do the swatch for my white gel pen–just going to use this cute little washi tape–there we go.

I don’t do anything too formal when I make my swatches. I just usually draw some rectangles for each color. So this set has four colors in it, and I on purpose make my rectangles nice and sloppy. I don’t get out a ruler usually.

Then I usually write underneath them–just like that. I’m going to make a note here that these are fine tip because it might make a difference here–just like that. And then I take out my white.

I have my gelly rolls and I think I’m not even going to draw squares for those. So I’m just going to gonna hit fast forward and let you watch how i make these swatches and you can see how relaxing it is.

You can also make swatches out of pencil crayon and they’re really nice too–so you can see what colors you have and how good your tools work. Are they really juicy pens or are they the pens that need to be thrown into a pile for your kids to use? Or are they going to become some of your new favorites? That’s what doing swatches will do for you.

But when I’m coloring for pain relief, if I have a headache or I’m aching like I am today, I usually try to relax my shoulders. I take deep breaths. I have water nearby to drink and I’m not too fussy about the coloring. I just relax and enjoy the colors and enjoy the process. So I’m just going to let you sit back and relax and enjoy this process with me.

Well I feel much more relaxed and I think my page turned out really pretty. The dollar store pens turned out to be about what I expected. Because they’re fine tip they’re going to be really great for adding flourishes and little details, but they’re not going to be great for coloring because of how much back and forth you have to do to get them to do anything. But they lay down pretty good color. I had to tap them a few times to get them to go but not bad. So see, they’re doing pretty good here. They’ll be good for writing notes in meetings–so that’s fun.

But the Stardust Gelly Roll pens were really fun to play with–they turned out really pretty! I’ll move them in the light so you can see the glitter–really good–they turned out really pretty.

I’m going to put a link below to another blog post that I did several months ago all about how I use coloring for pain relief. It’s really been a huge help in my life dealing with all the chronic pain and problems that I deal with, and it’s helped me find a lot of joy and bliss and happiness. And it’s helped me be able to be a part of the world again.

https://www.coloringbliss.com/free-coloring-pages-for-pain-management/

So I hope that next time that you’re feeling a lot of pain, and maybe you don’t feel good enough to actually do a coloring page, you will think about this and maybe pull out some of your favorite coloring supplies and do some art and do some little color swatches and just enjoy the process of creating. And hopefully it will give you some pain relief and help you feel a little bit better.

I hope you have a wonderful, and as low pain as possible, and colorful day! Thanks.