In July of 2022, Brianna Grier died falling out of a moving police car while having a mental health breakdown. Since Brianna passed, I have been heartbroken for her twins and family but also reflecting on my struggle with mental health. Mental health needs compassion and empathy, not police and punishment. The brunch strokes are purposeful, but I completed them with empathy in mind. I want to keep the composition simple but filled with meaning. The color theme represents vastness and loneliness, but also kinetic energy found in warm orange tones.
I am an art teacher with a master’s degree—trained by brilliant professors who believed that art could do more than decorate walls. I offer safe spaces for teenagers to grow—nourishing soil where their imaginations can take root.
And yet… I am assigned to hallway duty.
This is compulsory education, after all.
So I sit—posted like a sentinel—watching young lives stream past.
“Get to class,” I say with a smile and a nudge.
The system wants attendance; I’m hungry for presence.
Armed not with a whistle or clipboard, but with a pen—
my scribble’s soft insurgency.
The hallway stretches out like a geometric hymn.
Columns and corners chant structure.
Teenagers swirl past—half-formed galaxies of limbs and laughter—
their orbits chaotic, their gravity pulling time forward.
I begin to draw.
Not their tardiness, but their motion.
A shoulder. A blur of sneakers.
A tilted head chasing freedom.
Feet flickering like seconds.
Each mark a pulse.
Each smudge a breath.
My paper becomes a seismograph of seeing—
trembling gently through the mundane.
This isn’t about making art for a frame or a feed.
It’s about refusing to leak away in the fluorescent hum of obligation.
It’s a quiet mutiny against the clock.
I do this on long car rides, too (passenger side, mind you).
Letting the lines grow wild, jagged, and unapologetic.
Not for polish—
but for presence.
This is how I remember I’m still alive.
Still growing.
Still watching.
Still choosing to see.
Because sometimes mental health looks like
a piece of scrap paper,
a moving pen,
and the simple, sacred act of
marking time with wonder.
This piece is inspired by Mental Health Awareness Week that’s just left us.
Belated and as cryptic as things might be (as usual) here in Bleu’s world, better late to the party than never right?
A great deal of upheaval in my personal life, including making steps to better my mental health as well as reflecting on changes in my work life (potentially) and also my living situation, have dominated my headspace as of late.
Long story short, Buddha reminding us all to still any madness in life got me to work here as did the obvious itch to get some drawing done!
This is about the stigma associated with mental health problems.A highly experimental sketch on my behalf.I think that these masks repersent the different labels that can be put on these people.
An article/rant/annotation to an illustration. A #Hackney bar and its flies.
This picture is not as sad and blue as it might at first seem, I promise.
It is early in the week and the pub becomes the territory of the most outspoken drinkers. Raised somewhere between Churchill and Harold MacMillan, a night such as this is time for them to spin out a yarn of nostalgic fantasy. Encouraged by the lack of a crowd and with space to fill, statements start to fly.
In the opening rounds the barman athletically hits back with factual blocks and reality-check haymakers; statistics and personal experiences are given. Two histories cross examined, one where 1982 means Thatcher and the Falklands, the other renders Reagan and the AIDS crisis. Stoicism and national pride vs mental health and realism.
In the latter rounds the barman is fatigued, swaying on the backbar, glasses begin to stack up as form begins to drop. The older men seem stronger than ever.
The barflies come in close now, they scrutinise his generations work ethic and make wild political comments on poverty, immigrants and the minimum wage.
The barman is close to sheer bloody despair, he maintains his defence and focuses on breathing while maintaining his professional stance.
But at the end of the night the barman knows HE will ring that bell, they will politely leave and they will return again in a week and maybe, just maybe there will be a change, common ground or maybe at least polite silence.
But what these interactions have given despite the salt in the eye is community and an exchange between generations, culture and class of those participating. No home is ever straight forward, no relative without their good and bad traits and in a world where we often slide into echo chambers online or in our physical environments, the pub is still a place where society is family, face to face, pint to pint. Or maybe it's just a room with alcohol on tap?
as an artist I manifest my emotions through my doodles. I was going through a rough spot with my mental health back in 2016. This doodle would always light me up. I hope it does the same for you
To work on yourself knowing you are already whole is difficult. What blooms and helps you flourish as a result can bring you to a place where you can look at yourself with compassion and empowerment.
A beautiful line drawing depicts a person being hugged by his demons. He should be worried or scared, but he is happy because he accepts them—and they all look happy. The words “hug your demons” are written in a playful font below.
A drawing for someone I somehow met from the corner of the internet, his original character Runali. A few years of ups and downs, but there were many struggles due to poor mental health. In the end as things heal, we gradually recognised our differences and decided to take different paths.
my first *official* painting titled "Winter Solace". I painted this one of my OC when I was feeling down. We all know how it feels during the winter months... dark, gloomy, and a good portion of us suffer from seasonal depression. But sometimes, we just have to take it in and be thankful for how far we've come, and how much we have yet to experience. I painted this to remind myself and others that there's always the calm after the storm, no matter how intense your storm may be. It's okay to not be okay.
Shadows follow but I will move on! I have PTSD, so I am tormented by my past. Anxious for what's behind me. But I won't let that stop me! I may have "Lead in my shoes" (Dutch "Lood in mijn schoenen"), sometimes feel empty while on other times I am red from anger, nothing will stop me moving on. There will be temporary throwbacks, progress is not linear, but I will get there. I won't drown in self-pity this time.
Happy Halloween! (Ah! I'm not ready!) For Inktober this year, I reimagined drawings from previous years, as paintings. I used acrylic inks and Posca markers.
A commissioned piece of original artwork for a client that I drew which incorporates various elements of strength (as chosen by the client). It also illustrates that even in dark times a light will come shining through.
A person is depicted wearing a large pet recovery cone around their neck, trying to check his smartphone with the words "Digital Detox" prominently displayed. The image humorously comments on the idea of needing a barrier to reduce phone usage.
I'm working on getting a service dog and set up a website, an Instagram, and a fundraiser. This comic was my quick explanation of WHY I need a dog. There's a full color version, the pencil sketch, the inked comic, and a cute sticker of Theo, my service dog.
So some of these images are concepts covers for Monster. I'm done setting dates. When I finish it, I finish it. But until then, concepts.
Monster is going to be story based on mental health with a mix of religion. I have stories inside and they are scratching to get out. But the struggles are real and I'm trying to get the images out and onto the screen, paper, and ink.
A woman holds a megaphone directly to her face and out of the megaphone burst an explosion of flowers to comunícate the message "be your biggest fan" in a playful, self love, confidence boost, way.
I get these random thoughts and ideas. When they come I need to get them out like a parasite that eats you from the inside out. But yes, this one started with the expression and body pose. I scraped the rest of her body because I didn't like it. But since I like strong females that are ready to stand and fight. The more I colored and came to close the picture, I had a thought. Sometimes inside of my head I get too many voices that talk and tell me what I am. Some are truth but some are lies. Well those voices, ARE MANY!Just like Legion, they are many. So this picture describes mental health and spiritual warfare that happens on the daily.
