Taming my inner monsters

I am enjoying The Daily Monster site so much! On Wednesday I was working with a group of girls in Juvenile Hall. We talked a bit about how we all have "inner monsters" - feelings or attitudes or behaviors we wish we didn't have. I showed them how to use the blown ink method to begin a monster drawing and then turned them loose to create their own.

After they finished, and all the monsters were taped to the wall, we looked at them and discussed the work. Each girl was able to identify one monster that she knew was hurting her life in some way. And each girl was able to name one step she could take to dilute the power of that monster.

Today I was seeing a school kid. He deals with explosive anger, much improved from a year ago. I showed him how to begin the monster and he was off and running. He loved this activity. "Isn't it nice to have this monster out in front of you instead of running amok inside your head?" He agreed with that. I wish I could show you his drawing - a really scary monster that we hope is a lot tamer now.

While he was drawing and we were chatting about this interior creature, I was adding color to my demonstration piece and have posted it here. If you hope to tame your own interior demons, I recommend The Daily Monster as a fun place to begin.