art and healing Archives

COLOR the CAROLS: music and art to celebrate Christmas

1 October 2016 by Dr Lewis

Color the Carols COMBO by Eddie and Pearl Lewis It’s the first of October and an exciting day in the Lewis household. It’s RELEASE DAY for the COLOR the CAROLS COMBO. This COMBO includes the adult-friendly coloring book COLOR the TRUMPET CAROLS and the instrumental Christmas CD UNADORNED TRUMPET CAROLS. The COMBO is the result of a joint effort by my super talented husband, Eddie Lewis, and myself.

Over recent years, our family has been noticing how ragged and worn-out people look as the countdown to Christmas progresses. The festive season has become an exhausting time which many people have grown to dread: the endless shopping for gifts, the over-consumption of unhealthy food, office parties, stressful family get-togethers, church productions, crazy traffic, malls crammed with people, more shopping, and so it continues. By the time Christmas Day arrives, many people just want to crawl into a dark corner behind the Christmas tree and sleep off a month of fatigue and irritation. Where has all the PEACE and JOY that is supposed to be associated with Christmas gone? The Christmas carols advertise this blissful state, yet for many a joyful, peaceful Christmas is just a distant memory from a childhood when things moved slower and life was simpler.

Can we recapture that Christmas joy and peace described in the Bible and the many carols? Can we experience it again this Christmas? Eddie and I set out to discover if this was possible. We wanted to create something that would give people the opportunity to shut out the noise and stress of the festive season for at least a little while each day. Our music and illustration skills came together in what we can best describe as a “Christmas experience”. That may sound a little strange, but that is what makes this product what it is: a soothing balm for weary souls. The combo is designed to immerse you in the Christmas story, by soaking your senses in the story. For a little time each day, as you use this COMBO, you can become part of the Christmas story, rejoicing with the angels and shepherds, and at peace with Joseph and Mary. For a little time each day, as you journey through the COMBO using music and the creative application of color, you can leave behind the craziness of the Christmas season, and soak yourself in the true meaning of Christmas.

The coloring book (COLOR the TRUMPET CAROLS) takes you through the Christmas story, from the prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ to the fulfillment of the prophecy. Each full-page, hand-drawn illustration is accompanied by a page with the scripture which forms the basis for the drawing. This page also includes an extract from a well-known carol that relates to the scripture and the illustration. To deepen the experience of exploring this scene, this text page also includes reference to one or more (sometimes as many as six) carols from the UNADORNED TRUMPET CAROLS album. It is recommended that you play the CD as you color, and pay particular attention to the referenced carols for that page. (This text page is also framed and includes design elements from the accompanying main illustration, so there is plenty of opportunity to add color.)

There is no shortage of documentation available online to support coloring as a relaxing, stress-reducing activity. (If you want to read more about the impact of art therapy methods such as coloring on health, you can read this blog post.) Music has similar powerful health benefits. By combining music and art (to take advantage of the health and well-being benefits of both streams of creativity) with the uplifting effects of scripture, the COLOR the CAROLS COMBO offers a unique Christmas-focused experience. When you open the book, turn on the music, and settle down to meditate on one moment in the Christmas story, you choose something better, something more joyful and more peaceful, than the rush and the stress of today’s Christmas season where it is easy to forget WHY we are celebrating. Treat yourself to a worthwhile Christmas experience this year – and then share the joy and peace with others.

Art Therapy Adult Coloring Kit

17 November 2015 by Dr Lewis

“Healing Patterns: A Coloring Book for Adults” has become the focal point for a new art therapy kit. The scripture-centered coloring book, which has been available since May 2015, has now been released as part of a ready-to-give gift set. These gift sets are currently sold in ETSY’s Zisubu Artique craft store.

While using a book like “Healing Patterns: A Coloring Book for Adults” is relaxing and therapeutic no matter what your state of health, adult coloring books are especially beneficial for those facing illness or battling through a difficult recovery period. Often people are unsure of what gifts would be appropriate for someone who is ill, facing surgery, in a rehabilitation facility, or confined to a sick bed. An adult coloring book is a great way to combine entertainment with health benefits. It doesn’t require a great deal of concentration to color an illustration, so even those too medicated to enjoy much reading may still be able to engage in coloring. And an illustration can be colored in tiny increments, so a patient can do as much or as little coloring as they have energy for. An earlier blog post entitled “The Effect of Art of Healing” details some of the physical health benefits of an activity like coloring.

The HEALING PATTERNS art therapy kit was created to take the work out of getting started with therapeutic coloring. The kit brings together everything you (or the person you gift it to) will need to start coloring. Inside each gift set (packaged in a clear, re-sealable plastic bag) you will find:

One SIGNED copy of “Healing Patterns: A Coloring Book for Adults” – I have made signed copies (with a short hand-written message) available for these art therapy kits so the kits offer something different from what is available directly from the book stores (e.g. Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Lulu, Ingram, The Book Depository) in USA and Europe.
One ready-to-color greeting card and envelope – the front of the greeting card displays a design that brings together elements of one of the illustrations in the book and a scripture (Mark 10:27). The card can be colored and framed as an artwork, or used a greeting card (with or without coloring it). The card is blank inside to encourage the user to express their own thoughts, write poetry, or simply jot a note for someone else. Part of the joy of being creative lies in sharing your creative efforts with others. This greeting card is a simple opportunity for the user to benefit from a coloring exercise, while also making something useful to share with someone else.
One Healing Patterns postcard (4″ x 6″) – the colorful card is printed with a variation of the image from the back of the coloring book. The reverse side of the postcard has space for a message, an address, and a stamp. The postcard can be mailed using a standard postal stamp.
A set of pre-sharpened colored pencils (12 pencils)
A pencil sharpener (because pencils won’t stay sharp on their own) – anticipating that this kit may be given as a gift to people who are not necessarily in their own home where they have access to everything they need, we included a small pencil sharpener in the kit. That way, there is no need to give up your coloring time just because a pencil tip broke or wore down.

If you don’t want to try coloring for yourself and you don’t know anyone you could gift an art therapy kit to, consider donating one or two kits to your local clinic/hospital or assisted living facility. Many churches also have hospital visitation programs – drop some art therapy kits at your local church and ask them to distribute the kits to people during their hospital or home care visits. Zisubu Artique ships these art therapy kits worldwide.

The Effect of Art on Healing

25 June 2015 by Dr Lewis

Surgical Anatomy by J. Maclise 1859 Art, health, and healing are related. Say that out aloud in a public gathering and most people will nod enthusiastically. That art and music are great healing therapies for the body and soul is accepted as an undisputed “fact”. But is it really a “fact” or just something we feel must be true?

Stuckey and Nobel took a long, hard look at the connection between art, healing, and public health (Stuckey and Nobel, American Journal of Public Health, February 2010, vol 100, no 2, p254-263). These researchers compiled a review of qualitative and quantitative research studies (1995 to 2007) focused on the relationship between participation in the creative arts (e.g. painting, drawing, music, dancing) and health outcomes. What were they searching for? Proof (or the absence of proof) that participating in the creative arts does in fact play a role in physical healing. What did these researchers find? In rounding up and reviewing twelve years of research, Stuckey and Nobel came to the conclusion that artistic expression does have a positive effect on health. Obviously, the research is ongoing and we will continue to learn more with each new study conducted. If you are not interested in reading journal articles yourself, let me sum it up for you: the evidence indicates that creative engagement (i.e. actually participating in artistic activities) decreases anxiety, stress, and mood disturbances.

But what does a decrease in anxiety and stress have to do with the way you heal?

Everyone knows that too much stress is bad for our health, but most people think that stress only reduces our sense of well being. It turns out that stress doesn’t just make us feel bad on a head level. Stress actually plays a big role in how we heal on a physical level. Gouin and Kiecolt-Glaser, in their research on the impact of psychological stress on wound healing (Gouin and Kiecolt-Glaser, Immunology and Allergy Clinics of North America, February 2011, vol 31, no 1, p81–93) found that psychological stress significantly delays the healing of wounds. Lucas’ research on psychological stress and wound healing (Lucas, Wounds, 2011, vol 22, no 4, p 76-83) reported findings from three other studies linking anxiety and depression to delayed healing. In simple terms, this means that stressed out, anxious people don’t just feel bad – they experience higher levels of cortisol (the “stress” hormone) which has a negative effect on the immune system. The immune systems of stressed out, anxious people don’t work as well as they should, and as a result their bodies don’t heal as quickly as they could.

Surgical Anatomy by J. Maclise 1859 The news today is that participating in a creative endeavor is good for you – not just in some distant, “good feeling” kind of way, but in a practical, clinically measurable way. Science supports this. Being creative will help to lower your stress levels and reduce your anxiety. When you are less anxious and stressed out, your immune system will work better. When your immune system works well, you fight disease more effectively and you heal faster. If you want to encourage physical healing, follow your medical team’s advice while you also do your part to reduce your stress and anxiety. Start small by including creativity into your life. Not sure how to be creative? No time for such “nonsense”? Definitely see yourself as a non-artistic personality? Too sick or too exhausted to still be “arty” and creative at the end of a long day? Try an easy-to-use, stress-reducing tool such as “Healing Patterns: A Coloring Book for Adults“. Using this book requires no artistic skill (but you will need some colored pencils), and you stay in control: you decide how long to be “arty” each day. Take a step towards better health: be creative.

Illustrations: “Surgical Anatomy” by J. Maclise (a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons) – published in Philadelphia by Blanchard and Lea in 1859.