The Art of Self Love is A 6-WEEK project designed to nurture your creativity, confidence and soul!

Our first funded wellbeing project, we delivered The Art of Self-Love in February-March 2020 at The Cartoon Museum. It was designed for people experiencing mild-moderate mental health issues, to offer dedicated creative time and space for self-reflection, self-expression, conversation and connection with others.

Throughout full-day Saturday workshops, 16 participants explored a range of activities and aspects of ‘self-love’, and had the opportunity to play and experiment with a variety of media and styles. They also enjoyed a masterclass in character creation with Cartoonist and Author Rachel Ball!

The Art of Self-Love was due to culminate in an exhibition, but sadly COVID came along and scuppered that! The project enabled people to see themselves from fresh and multiple perspectives, and most crucially it created a safe and inclusive space for participants to connect, encourage and inspire each other.

Below is a selection of artwork created by the participants.

project outcomes

100% of participants agreed or strongly agreed with the following statements:

• It had a positive impact on my mental health

• It helped me to build confidence in expressing myself creatively

• It helped me to see myself in new and different ways

• It helped me to understand and feel the therapeutic benefits of drawing

• I noticed a positive change in my mood after attending each session

• It was a valuable experience that I would recommend to those struggling with mental health issues
  

Participants said that the top 3 benefits of taking part were:

• Being part of a supportive creative group (73%)

• The time to draw, get creative and play with different materials (67%)

• The opportunity to share and hear about other people’s experiences (73%)
  

Before the first session and after the last, participants were asked to rate their creative confidence and self-esteem out of 5. As a group, by the end of the course, creative confidence had risen by 67% and self-esteem had risen by 51%

A few comments from participants:

"It provided a space where people were honest about how they were feeling and what impact it had on their art. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where in a group setting it was completely fine to say that you were struggling and to take time out or adapt what you were doing to make you more comfortable. The group would be the highlight of my week, even when I didn’t feel like going I’d make myself go because I knew how much better I’d feel once I was sat down and getting to draw with the group. It made me feel so much more confident about not being perfect with art and improved my self esteem by taking part in art and trying new things."

"I remember feeling really really happy (and I usually don't feel anything at all) on the first lesson because I thought wow, I've FINALLY found something which I can say I ENJOY rather than feel indifferent about. It was also nice to know that I had a 'community' of like-minded people and I didn't feel so out-of-place. I've started painting again after the project (first time in 7 years) and even though I got bored in quarantine, I definitely don't think I would've even thought of drawing if I didn't go to the Sketch Appeal course. Also, just chatting to Dulcie for a few minutes helped - she mentioned that she doesn't consider herself creative and I was surprised since she IS an artist and it made me realise that I don't have to have all the answers immediately and be one of those creative geniuses who splashes ideas all over a page without any prompts. I think it affected my creative confidence as I've now started applying for UX design jobs which I never thought I'd have the balls for."

meet the project team