Hi, I‘m Lorena and welcome to The Stress Less Pencil, where we use art as a tool to improve our mental health and wellbeing. The weekly prompts are designed for total beginners and experienced artists alike, so welcome welcome.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, and unsurprisingly for that time, TV played a huge part in my childhood. I absolutely love the hero cartoons of the time - He-Man and She-Ra, Saber Rider and the Star Sherrifs, Bravestarr, Queen Millennia, and a couple of years later Sailor Moon.
What all (super)hero shows have in common is a great transformation scene that turns our protagonists from more-or-less normal people into badass heroes that aee ready to fight the evil of the week. We witness Prince Adam turn into He-Man, Adora into She-Ra, and Bravestarr’s horse into an upright walking and talking sidekick with a giant space gun.
Oh, how awesome that would be. Just walking around like myself, when suddenly, a challenging situation arrives, and BAM! Superhero Transformation! Short epic fight scene, and voilà. Taxes sorted, laundry cleaned, unhappy client appeased, anxiety extinguished.
Another commonality are the symbols and objects that allow our heroes to summon and channel their powers. She-Ra’s sword and Grayskull, the Sailor Gang’s planetary symbols, Bravestarr’s animal powers. No power without powerful imagery.
So today, we will create our own symbol of power that we can use to summon our superpowers when we need them.
The Activity: Create your Symbol of Power
Step 1 - Your source of power
In this activity, we won’t be focusing on what exactly our superpowers are. We all have a big arsenal of special powers, plus a whole bunch of “not sure if I have this power but I need to activate it now so let’s hope for the best”.
Instead, we want to focus on where we get our power from. What inspires us to reach beyond what we think can do? What keeps us going, when the going is rough? What makes us believe we can slay that dragon?
Write down a list of things that inspire, empower, activate, and motivate you. You don’t need a long list. Sometimes, it’s just one thing we need to turn on our superpower.
Step 2 - Design your symbol
Choose the most important items from your list, and turn them into your symbol of power. Take a pen and pencil and play around with the different elements. See how you can combine them. Make different versions. Try putting it in a circle, or freestyle. You can look up how to easily stylise your symbols by googling “[the thing you want to draw] icon”.
Step 3 - Keep it close
Now, get a tattoo of your drawing. Just kidding. But you do want to keep it close, so you can use it to summon your powers whenever you need. Frame it and put it on your desk, make it your phone wallpaper, or print it on a t-shirt.
The next time life throws a supervillain at you, activate your symbol and witness your very own superhero transformation.
My Example
Some of the things I included in my power symbol:
Nature: water, mountains, tree, the sun.
My patronus/spirit animal/trusted superhero animal that I can turn into a battle machine: the stag.
The Awen symbol representing inspiration and creativity.
So yah, the villains of life don’t stand a chance against what I turn into when I activate all of my power.
Have a super powerful week my friends.
Love, Lorena