Bob's New Art Therapy

Monsters

The good news is that Bob has really gotten into drawing again, he daily asks for "pencils" and draws pretty much every morning while I do laundry and chores about the house.

Most of the time, however, he doesn't finish a drawing, continually flipping to a clean page in his sketchbook and starting over. This one he finished. He calls it "Monsters".

I think with each new drawing, I get a little more insight into just what goes on inside his stroke-damaged brain. And, of course, I am hoping this new "art therapy" will help him in his recovery process. Although drawing is good for his motor skills, my big idea here is that using his right "creative" and undamaged side of his brain will hopefully help heal and "rewire" his damaged left hemisphere, as the right and left sides of the brain work in cooperation on creative pursuits, the right side being the "creative dreamer" and the left being the "organizer" and "critic"... anyway, that's my idea, we'll see if it works.

Several of his past occupational therapists have tried to entice Bob to draw, to no avail. The way I finally managed to entice him was by getting him a very nice "professional" artist sketchpad and colored art pencils---these being an early Christmas present from my mom and dad. Having the right equipment has made all the difference.

An interesting side note is that after Bob had his first stroke in 2003, which left him with residual fine motor problems in his right (dominant) hand, he pretty much gave up drawing. No matter how much I coaxed and encouraged him, he always thought he wouldn't be "good enough". So the first stroke in 2003 took Bob's art away, and the second stroke has strangely brought my artist back.