Painting with ADHD: Medication

Hi!

So I found out when I was 17 that I have ADHD. It wasn't long before I was put on stimulant medication. To be honest, I don't remember what meds I took the first time but they weren't right for me for whatever reason. The second try was amazing and genuinely transformed every part of my life. I have taken this medication most of the time, with a few months break every so often when they're unnecessary, since March 2019. Despite the breaks, I think medication was a big part of what made me able to get into painting because I developed my skills while far calmer and able to concentrate.

Every morning between half 6 and 7 I wake up, take a sip of water, blindly open my meds and swallow one. Half the time I wake up and am genuinely unsure as to whether I took them because I fall almost immediately back to sleep and having ADHD, my memory is abysmal. To be honest these being stimulants give me such a better sleep schedule than I would have otherwise so falling back to sleep isn't too much of a concern since I wake back up naturally about half an hour later.

That has been my routine intermittently for the last 2 years. I started about a month before I bought my first set of oil paints. Apparently they didn't supress all my impulsivity. But the first times I painted with them I was able to focus. I started with flowers and the occasional seascape and I was able to take it bit by bit, breaking it down without having a meltdown and giving up. This was miraculous to me, who would previously have got bored about halfway through a painting never to look at it again. I was able to channel how transfixed I got on oil paintings and practice! The fact at that stage I never got so frustrated at a painting that I painted over it was such a miracle. I have since cried while painting, but what artist hasn't.

I built up my skills while able to be calm, and keep it balanced with my A levels. I got extremely frustrated with my A level artwork because I felt disconnected from the person I was before I took my meds. This wasn't a bad thing though because that person had absolutely no idea where they were going with their ideas. I learnt to twist these ideas a little, even if for the sake of my grades it was too little too late. I could do the work though. This was a revelation in both my artwork and my essay writing. My grades rapidly improved once I started taking meds in essay subjects more because I was able to work at my writing. I was delighted during that time which should have been the most stressful few months of my life. I was doing well and my painting was gradually improving behind the scenes.

After my A levels I had the gift of time. A few days before my last exam I went to Cass Art in Brighton and bought a triple pack of Daler-Rowney 30x40cm canvases. Now I had time, and seemingly the ability, I decided through the summer I would complete one painting per month starting with a landscape of Barcelona. I would never have been able to attempt something like this without medication. The ability to break down shapes, keep going on something that is tough and finally finishing what I started was inconceivable. The part of my brain that would stare at something and feel like there was pressure everywhere which made me scream because I needed it to work was calmed, and it was easy to take it slow and just redo it if it went wrong. I was even able to be proud of it at the end, and amazingly the first time I cried over it was from pride.

I did my one and only ever portrait, and my first big flower (which was about 20x faster than the portrait) before the end of the summer. I also went to Portugal and did my first plen air watercolour while sitting on a rock, attempting to find some shade after being burnt in the pool by the 40°c heat. I was very lucky to also go to Amalfi that summer and was triumphant in completing one painting every day. Of course being me I decided to also do other paintings as well, but I was so proud of this little collection of postcards which were helping me through my first holiday where my sister stayed home, and the beginnings of a break up. Without my meds all of this would have been a lot harder on me, but I was able to channel my emotions through painting in a far more controlled way. Instead of wanting to stab a piece of paper with a paintbrush because things kept going wrong, I could create something beautiful.

I won't pretend that medication solved everything and made every aspect of my painting easier. There were times where I couldn't find a way to be creative because my mind wasn't working at full speed all the time. Late in the first lockdown of 2020 I stopped taking my medication since it was making me emotional and overwhelmed. I'm not entirely sure why this was but I think it was most likely to do with the lack of structure from lockdown, the effects of which were heightened by my medication. By that time I had built up my skills to a point where I could paint reasonably well without them so it just meant that I was on the whole slower at painting, and tended towards simpler subjects.

I have recently returned to regularly taking my meds, and I find that painting is far less frustrating and far more fun again all of a sudden. My time management still leaves something to be desired, and admin is still not fun, but medication has allowed me to build to a point where I can paint well. I am very grateful for it and I hope you can understand why this is actually a really positive thing, not that someone is failing to do something that they should be able to do.

If you want to talk about anything I've talked about, or learn more about my painting or ADHD then let me know! I would be delighted to explain more or talk about other parts of having a slightly neurodivergent brain.

See you soon,

Imogen