Expressive Art Inspirations Relaxation

Reflections on the Creative Path Art therapy can be a great way to relax. Consider these exercises
if you're looking to feel a little more laid back.
100 Art Therapy Exercises - 1. Paint to music. Letting your creativity flow in response
The Updated and Improved List to music is a great way to let out feelings and just relax.
http://intuitivecreativity.typepad.com/expressiveartinspirations/100-art-therapy- 2. Make a scribble drawing. With this activity, you'll turn
exercises.html
a simple scribble into something beautiful, using line,
color and your creativity.
"The Healthiest Form of Projection is Art" 3. Finger paint. Finger painting isn't just fun for kids–
(Fritz Perlz - Gestalt Therapist)
Here is a popular internet list of art therapy activities originally adults can enjoy it as well. Get your hands messy and
really have fun spreading paint around.
posted up many years ago by the Nursing School Blog, and as
time has gone by over half of the links have become defunct or 4. Make a mandala. Whether you use the traditional sand
out of date. I have researched current links that reflect the or draw one on your own, this meditative symbol can
inspiring art therapy directives on the internet today, while aiming easily help you to loosen up.
to keep them as close as possible to the original list. 5. Draw with your eyes closed. Not being able to see what
Warmly, you are drawing intensifies fluidity, intuition, touch and
Shelley Klammer  sensitivity.
6. Draw something HUGE. Getting your body involved
Emotions and moving around can help release emotion as you're
drawing.
Deal with emotions like anger and sadness through these helpful
exercises. 7. Use color blocks. Colors often come with a lot of
emotions attached. Choose several paint chips to work
1. Draw or paint your emotions. In this exercise, you'll
with and collage, paint and glue until you've created a
focus entirely on painting what you're feeling.
colorful masterpiece.
2. Create an emotion wheel. Using color, this activity will 8. Let yourself be free. Don't allow yourself to judge your
have you thinking critically about your emotions.
work. If you think your paintings are too tight and
3. Make a meditative painting. Looking for a creative controlled, this collection of tips and techniques to try
way to relax?  Have trouble sitting still to meditate? should help you work in a looser style. 
Meditative painting might be just the thing you're 9. Only use colors that calm you. Create a drawing or a
looking for.  No painting skill or experience necessary -
painting using only colors that you find calming.
only a desire to relax and become more creative.
10. Draw in sand. Like a Zen garden, this activity will have
4. Put together a journal. Journals don't have to just be
you drawing shapes and scenes in the sand, which can be
based around words. You can make an art journal as
immensely relaxing and a great way to clear your mind.
well, that lets you visually express your emotions.
11. Make a zentangle. These fun little drawings are a great
5. Explore puppet therapy. Puppets aren't just for kids.
tool for letting go and helping reduce stress.
Make your own and have them act out scenes that make
you upset. 12. Color in a design. Sometimes, the simple act of coloring
can be a great way to relax. Find a coloring book or use
6. Use line art. Line is one of the simplest and most basic
this mandala for coloring.
aspects of art, but it can also contain a lot of emotion.
Use simple line art to demonstrate visually how you're 13. Draw outside. Working en plein air can be a fun way to
feeling. relax and get in touch with nature while you're working
on art.
7. Design a postcard you will never send. Are you still
angry or upset with someone in your life? Create a
postcard that expresses this, though you don't have to
ever send it.
8. Create a family sculpture. For this activity, you makes
a clay representation of each family member-- mother, Happiness
father, siblings, and any other close or influential family Art can not only help you deal with the bad stuff, but also help
members to explore emotional dynamics and roles within you appreciate and focus on the good. Check out these activities
your family. all about reflecting on your personal happiness.
9. Paint a mountain and a valley. The mountain can 1. Collage your vision of a perfect day.Think about what
represent a time where you were happy, the valley, when constitutes a perfect day to you and collage it. What
you were sad. Add elements that reflect specific events about this collage can you make happen today?
as well. 2. Take photographs of things you think are
10. Attach a drawing or message to a balloon. Send away beautiful. No one else has to like them but you. Print
negative emotions or spread positive ones by attaching a and frame them to have constant reminders of the
note or drawing to a balloon and setting it free. beautiful things in life.
11. Collage a heart. Collage your childhood memories in a 3. Make a collage related to a quote you like. Take the
heart formation. words of wisdom from someone else and turn them into
something visually inspiring.
4. Create a drawing that represents freedom. The 11. Draw yourself as a superhero. Many people like
Surrealists embraced automatic drawing as way to superhero stories. We resonate with the themes in the
incorporate randomness and the subconscious into their stories, with the dilemmas and problems that superheroes
drawings, and to free themselves from artistic face, and we aspire to their noble impulses and heroic
conventions and everyday thinking. acts.
5. Document a spiritual experience. Have you ever had a
spiritual experience in your life? Paint what it felt like
intuitively.
Trauma and Loss
These activities will ask you to face some unpleasant aspects of
6. Make a stuffed animal. Soft, cuddly objects can be very life, but with the goal of overcoming them.
comforting. Use this project to create an animal from 1. Draw a place where you feel safe. An art therapy
your intuitive drawings. directive for finding your safe place for healing from
7. Work on a softness project. Using only soft or trauma.
comforting objects, create a work of art. 2. Create a mini-diorama. This diorama can showcase an
8. Build a "home." What does home mean to you? This important moment in your life or some trauma that
activity will have you create a safe, warm place that feels you've experienced.
like home to you. 3. Create a collage of your worries. What worries you in
9. Document an experience where you did something your life? Cut out pictures from magazines to represent
you didn't think you could do. We all have to do things these worries.
that we're scared or unsure of sometimes. Use this 4. Draw something that scares you. Everyone is
activity as a chance to commemorate one instance in frightened of something and in this project you'll get a
your life. chance to bring that fear to light and hopefully work
10. Think up a wild invention. This invention should do towards facing it.
something that can help make you happier– no matter 5. Turn your illness into art. Struggling with a potentially
what that is. terminal illness? Turn your illness into something
11. Make a prayer flag. Send your prayers for yourself or meaningful with the creative journal method.
those around you out into the universe with this project. 6. Paint a loss in your life. If you've lost someone you love
or something, paint it. This will help you to remember
Portraits but also to recover.
Often, a great way to get to know yourself and your relationships 7. Make art that is ephemeral. Sometimes we have a hard
with others is through portraits. time letting go, but this project will teach you that it's ok
1. Create a past, present and future self-portrait. This if something doesn't last. Use materials like sand, chalk,
drawing or painting should reflect where you have been, paper or water to create art that you will destroy when it's
who you are today, and how see yourself in the future. done.
2. Draw a bag self-portrait. On the outside of a paper bag,
you'll create a self-portrait. On the inside, you'll fill it Collaging
with things that represent who you are. If you prefer to cut and paste rather than draw or paint, these
3. Choose the people who matter most to you in life and projects are for you.
create unique art for each. This is a great way to 1. Create a motivational collage. You can hang this
acknowledge what really matters to you and express your collage somewhere you'll see it everyday. Filled with
gratitude. images you find motivating, it'll help you keep pushing
4. Collage someone you admire. If someone has ever on.
helped inspire your path, collage this person. 2. Create a face collage on a mask. We all wear masks of
5. Create an expressive self-portrait. Paint in expressive some sort. This project lets you showcase what's in your
colors. Select colors for emotional impact. mask and the face you put on for the world.
6. Draw yourself as a warrior. Start thinking about 3. Create a clutter collage. Are there things cluttering up
yourself as a strong, capable person by drawing yourself your life? In this project, use words and pictures to show
as a warrior in this activity. the clutter in your way.
7. Create a transformational portrait series. Transform 4. Create a calming collage. Choose images that you find
your perceptions about yourself with this list of self- soothing, calming or even meditative and combine them
portrait ideas. to create an attractive collage that can help you to relax.
8. Imitate Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Using objects that have 5. Collage a painting. To complete this exercise, you'll
meaning to you, create a portrait of yourself. first need to create a simple, abstract painting on paper.
9. Create a body image sketch. Practice life drawing to Then, tear this painting up and create another. Think
fall in love with all of the varieties of the human body, about how you felt when you had to tear up the first
including your own. painting and which you like more.
10. Draw a mirror. This activity is based around a Piet
Mondrian quote: "The purer the artist's mirror is, the Self
more true reality reflects in it." It involves letting die Examine aspects if who you are and how you see the world
what is not your true reflection, is getting back a truer through these amazing art projects.
reflection of yourself in your mirror. 
1. Draw images of your good traits. Creating drawings of 2. Create a family tree of strength. This exercise honors
your good traits will help you to become more positive those around you who support you. Paint those close to
and build a better self-image. you who offer you the strength you need.
2. Draw yourself as an animal. Is there an animal that you 3. Make something for someone else. Making something
have a special interest in or feel like is a kindred spirit? for someone else can be a great way to feel good and
Draw yourself as that animal. help someone else do so as well.
3. Create a timeline and journal the most significant 4. Make anchor art. Who are the anchors in your life? In
moments in your life.This timeline will be the story of this project, you'll make an anchor and decorate it with
your life, with the most important moments highlighted the people and things that provide you stability and
visually. strength.
4. Put together a jungle animal collage. Choose jungle 5. Draw all the positive things in your life. Everyone has
animals that you find the most interesting, draw them, at least one good thing in life, so sit down and figure out
and then reflect on why you've chosen these specific what makes you happy– then draw it.
animals. 6. Sculpt your hand in plaster. Once it's dry, write all the
5. Sculpt your ideal self. If you could make yourself into good things you can do with it right onto the hand.
the perfect person, what would you look like? 7. Paint a rock. This project is meant to offer you strength.
6. Draw the different sides of yourself. In this project, You can approach it in two ways. One option is to paint
you'll explore the different aspects of your personality, the rock with things that empower you. The other is to
giving each a visual representation. You might only have paint it with struggles you overcome.
one or two, or maybe even twelve. 8. Write on leaves to create a gratitude tree. What are
7. Make art with your fingerprints. Your fingerprints are you grateful for? This project asks you to write those
as unique as you are. Use ink and paint to make art that things on leaves to construct a tree or banner of gratitude.
uses your fingerprints. 9. Map of consciousness collage. More often than not, in a
8. Draw yourself as a tree.Your roots will be loaded with single day, we can feel conflicted in our consciousness in
descriptions of things that give you strength and your several different ways. This directive helps to explore
good qualities, while your leaves can be the things that personality dynamics by mapping them out visually with
you're trying to change. spontaneous collage and drawing. 
9. Design a fragments box. In this project, you'll put 10. Create a snowflake out of paper. Write ideas about
fragments of yourself into a box, helping construct a how you are unique on the snowflake.
whole and happier you. 11. Build a personal altar. This is a highly personal project
10. Paint an important childhood memory. What was a that will help connect you with your spiritual side and
pivotal memory in your childhood? This activity asks honor your resilience.
you to document it and try to understand why it was so
important to you.
11. Write and illustrate a fairy tale about yourself. If you
Inside the Mind
Take a look inside your mind to see what's going on with these
could put yourself into a happily ever after situation, projects.
what role would you play and how would the story go?
Create a book that tells the tale.
1. Create a blot art. Like a classic Rorschach test, fold
paper in half with paint or ink in the middle and describe
12. Design a visual autobiography. This creative journaling
what you see.
project asks you to look back at your life and make a
visual representation of it.
2. Mind Mapping. Make a visual representation of your
thoughts to figure out how your mind works.
13. Create your own coat of arms. Choose symbols that
represent your strengths to build your own special coat of
3. Make a dreamcatcher. Having bad dreams? Create this
arms. age-old tool for catching your dreams with a few simple
tools.
14. Draw a comic strip about a funny moment in your
life. Enjoy a moment of levity with this exercise that will
4. Draw your dreams. You can learn a lot from what goes
focus in on a comical even that happened to you. on in your dreams, so keep a dream journal and use it for
inspiration to draw or paint.
15. Build your own website. Websites are very versatile
ways to express yourself. Build your own to express
what's most important about you. Miscellaneous
16. Create a box of values. First, collage or paint a box the If you're still looking for something to empower, help or soothe
represents you. Then, place items inside the box that you, these projects may fit the bill.
represent the things you value the most. 1. Use natural materials. Leaves, sticks, dirt, clay and
other natural materials can help you get in touch with the
natural world and the more primal side of yourself.
Gratitude 2. Build an archetype. Check out this series of projects to
Here you'll find a collection of projects that will help you be
happy about what you have and express your gratitude for it. build a set of archetypes, or ideal examples, that can help
you explore how you see the world.
1. Document your gratitude visually.What things are you
grateful for in your life? Paint or collage a work that
represents these things.
3. Use your body as a canvas. You don't need paper when
you have you body. Paint on your hands and feet or
anywhere else to feel more in touch with yourself.
4. Sculpt spirit figures. Connect with those that have
passed on or your own spiritual essence using these
sculpted figures.
5. Make art out of recycled items. You can reuse old
items that have meaning to you or just re-purpose
something you have laying around. Either way, you'll get
insights into how you can reshape and reevaluate your
own life.
6. Collage with old photographs. If you're uncomfortable
using old photos you can make copies, but with this
project you'll draw out one characteristic you see in the
person in the photos.
7. Create your own interpretation of a famous work of
art. How would you have painted the Mona Lisa? Using
a famous work as your inspiration, create your own
work. It could help reveal more about your lens on the
world.
8. Work collaboratively. Art can be better when two work
at it together, so find a partner and collaborate on just
about anything.
9. Use a found or made object as a paintbrush. Whether
it's something sharp or something soft, make your own
artistic tool and use it to express what you're feeling.
10. Make crayon stained glass. Reflect upon your spiritual
side with this project that lets you create your own
stained glass window.
11. Paint a window. Windows let you see in and see out.
Paint yours with things you want to hide or show to the
world.