[CopperChaos]

Wild Mountain Equids

May is Mental Health Awareness Month and mental health is something I am passionate about. A lot of the time when we think about mental health we think of labels, diagnoses, and what it’s like to struggle with them. Mental health is so much more than labels and diagnoses though. Everyone one of us experiences it, good or bad, and that means we experience may symptoms even if the aren’t “textbook” definitions. Each of you is uniquely you and experiences will always vary. Part of bringing awareness to mental health is to highlight these things too. When we understand the challenges we face we can use our awareness and skills to take care of ourselves and manage our mental health.

Kicking off this theme is self-doubt. Self-doubt, or the feeling of uncertainty about one's abilities and worth, can be a significant aspect of mental health, impacting various aspects of a person's well-being. Self-doubt is also a very normal challenge to experience, and can manifest in all sorts of ways.

For me, art and designing has always been a process I experience a significant amount of self-doubt so this girl represents how I see the impacts of self-doubt. Stifled and silenced when really our heart longs for expression and our voice yearns to be heard; the feeling leeching into other areas and darkening our self image.

Current Owner: the legend leg

Name: Aisling
Height: 13.3hh
Gender: Mare
Coat Color: Somatic Fleabitten Gray (Black)*
Quipping: Drip
Eye: Steel Gray
Type: Special* - Somatic

*This equid is apart of the Mental Health Theme, it must follow theme equid restrictions. Certain themes cannot pass themed traits. For more information check out the Info Centre*

To win this adopt, I want to break through some of the stigma with self expression and fear of judgement; letting go of some of that self-doubt or taking a step outside that comfort zone! To do this I would like you to draw this Equid while “embracing the mess”. To embrace the mess I want you to create something deliberately messy or chaotic, allowing your doubts and emotions to spill onto the page or canvas. If you find you’re struggling with that I encourage you to draw in the dark (if you draw traditionally) or with your screen off/very low screen brightness/a blind drawing app (if you draw digitally). This takes the visual input element and self-judgement away you can also choose to do something new or challenging, whether that’s drawing, painting, or another form of art (yes, I’m including all of those great physical forms of art). The goal is to have fun and not worry about the pressures of critique we pose on ourself!

*EDIT* - You may include a brief art description or artist explanation to include with your piece

[Agent Shark]

Username: Agent Shark
Name: Mute
Height:
Art: wip,,

[MapleNeko]

Username: Mapleneko
Name: Iwazaru
Height: 12.3
Art: Wip <3

[Expresso.]

Username: expresso.
Name: TBD
Height: 16hh
Art: Art here

[the legend leg]

Username: the legend leg
Name: Aisling
Height: 13.3 hh
Art: Sitting Among The Self - my challenge is feeling the need to explain.. so, I wont.

I caved.. Im always open to criticism and I think I take it pretty well- you could say I finally learned to separate myself from my art but its the opposite, I have entwined myself so much that I have learned to grow as an artist from feedback. Imagine how much Ive grown getting feedback on all the artwork Ive done over the last decade. However, thats obviously not where my doubt builds a barrier. My doubt is where my artistic expression comes from. The not-very-pretty life experiences helped me appreciate incredibly unique forms of creativity and the concepts deep down, no matter how sad they can be.. But my doubt is how can I pull that off too? Who plays my role, will someone be open enough to my art to understand me as an artist, like I try to be to others? So I stick to emotions I think other people are comfortable dealing with just so my artistic expression can be seen.. Thanks for the therapy session Cops. Im not sure if others will recognize my doubts in my piece, however, it made me really think of how I feel and and whats truly blocking me from even more growth//



(‘:

[~Trompy]

Username:
Name:
Height:
Art:

WIP <3

[BloodiedPuppet_1314]

Username: BloodiedRose_1314
Name: Broken
Height:
Art: WIP

[|Shyba|]

Username: |Shyba|
Name: BT
Height: 11.0hh
Art: As a more visual person, glass has been strong representation of my own mind's barriers rather than words. It's incredibly hard to break those barriers and this piece was no exception, so while I was drawing the glass shards became the very barriers I was forcing myself to break by not only participating, but also not redoing this piece in the doubt that it wasn't what was wanted.

[Nikki6Ashba]

Username: Nikki6Ashba
Name: Psyche
Height:13.3 hh
Art:

[.devote.]

Username: .devote.
Name: Lilo
Height: 11 hh
Art: One second you are enjoying the moment and then the next thing you know some moments have caught you in a blur! Remember to be kind to those thought’s, they’ll pass <3 don’t get lost on the way to where you want to go…