Art for comfort

I've been having off and on days when I feel like depression is threatening and have been trying to treat it in whatever way I can with healing activities. Yesterday I felt insecure, like I used to feel as a child. Why does that happen to me? Maybe I need some counseling.

I remember well one day when I was a seven-year old at a health treatment center (where I had to stay for six traumatic weeks - away from my family). I had accidentally gotten locked up in a bathroom and was left behind when all the other children went for a walk in the forest. I panicked and yelled and screamed and cried. A nurse heard me and let me out. As I cried bitterly, she comforted me and took me to a table by a bright window. There she set me to drawing and coloring. I will never forget how I felt and how doing the creative work helped me through this time.

So now when I'm feeling a bit down - or insecure as I did yesterday - I feel like that child once more as I draw and paint. Creative work is a wonderful healer. And I have something to show for it at the end.

The drawing I posted here is partially copied from another drawing as an exercise. It's set in my native country, Holland. I'd like to post some more original work but my husband has to hook my scanner up to the computer first. Currently I most enjoy - and have the most success - drawing European street scenes with India ink and then painting them with watercolors. I can do them because they involve straight lines and I can handle those. I've been working from photographs my husband took earlier this year.