Studies have shown that drawing or doodling helps you relax, but the idea has even more merit as a pastime for those who want to increase focus, enhance creativity or boost their mood.
New York magazine considered drawing as one of the best new hobbies to try during quarantine, when folks had extra time to develop the craft and were looking for something with instruction online. Now that people are emerging from their pandemic cocoons, you can still tap the benefits, along with the online instruction, and level up the benefits with in-person art classes or socializing while you paint.
For the price of a class or a few pads and a set of drawing pencils, it’s hard to beat the advantages of creating art. Research credits the hobby with numerous benefits, even for people who aren’t artistically inclined.
According to a 2017 study published in the Arts in Psychotherapy journal, for example, “Visual self-expression helps with attention and improves health and well-being.” Researchers at Drexel University and the College of New Jersey drew this conclusion after studying participants who engaged in “self-expression tasks” of coloring, doodling and free drawing.
They discovered that overall “the three visual arts tasks resulted in significant activation of the medial prefrontal cortex” and “participants improved in their self-perceptions of problem solving and having good ideas.”
A 2019 study by developmental psychologist Jennifer Drake at Brooklyn College found just 10 minutes of drawing provided a mood boost when participants drew to express or distract themselves over the course of a month. Drake’s findings were published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Even more significant, Drake noted this effect was the same across a range of randomly selected participants, regardless of any artistic skill or promise — or lack thereof.
Ready to tap into all that artsy goodness? Here are locales in Georgia for nurses who want to create artwork, whether you’re a newbie or resuming the hobby:
Studio Sessions: Sculpture in Motion
This July 27 workshop is just one of the single-session art classes for adults offered by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. It takes as its inspiration the concurrent exhibit of Alexander Calder’s mobiles. Class participants construct their own three-dimensional pieces, and materials are provided.
Art classes for adults at Spruill Center for the Arts