por What are art therapy activities?
The art therapy activities They are a set of techniques that can help foster artistic creation, express oneself and solve emotional or psychological problems in a dynamic and fun way.
This technique can be used in children, adolescents, adults and the elderly, linking art to psychology.
Art therapy activities for children, adolescents and adults
1. Draw outdoors
Aim: Relax in nature.
Procedure: Drawing outdoors can be a unique experience at any time of the year, whether done alone or with others. One day when you feel sad or desolate, the best alternative to staying at home is to take our drawing book and our pencil and go to a park or a field and listen to the nature that surrounds us.
While we draw any part of the landscape that has caught our attention, we will be able to hear the singing of the birds, how the air moves the leaves of the trees and even our breathing. It is a really relaxing activity that will ease your discomfort.
Material: Sketchbook and pencil or any other material you use to draw.
2. Paint the music
Aim: Outline what the music expresses to you on paper.
Procedure: Do you like classic music? Listening to music also has multiple benefits for our health, as the Greek philosopher Plato said: «Music is for the soul what gymnastics is for the body.»
In this activity you will try to express on paper through drawings or shapes what the music you are listening to tells you.
To perform this exercise correctly, you will have to let yourself be carried away by the music you are listening to and allow your creativity to awaken within you, in this way you can relax and let your feelings come out.
Material: CDs with classical music, radio, paper and pencil. You can use the music with which you feel most comfortable.
3. Recreate a place where you feel safe
Aim: Know yourself.
Procedure: Another way to relax and get to know ourselves is to reflect on the place where we feel safe, sometimes it can be quite difficult and it is a question that we have not asked ourselves very often: Where do I feel safe?
Thanks to this wonderful activity you will be able to get to know yourself a little better and give shape to that place where you were where you felt really good with any type of material, the important thing is that you can visualize that place, and if you can leave it in a place where you have it in sight so you can look at it when you’re not feeling well.
Material: Any material with which you want to carry out the activity, be it paper, clay, plasticine…
4. Art in nature
Aim: Carry out a work in nature with the materials available.
Procedure: Not only being in nature benefits our mental and physical health, but it also develops our imagination and makes us escape from the problems and sadness of our soul.
With this activity we will have to make a work with the material that nature provides us, be it with stones, leaves, tree branches, flowers, grass… We have to let our creativity flourish and express ourselves.
Material: Any material that is natural and found in the place where we are going to carry out the activity.
5. Make a sculpture with recyclable material
Aim: Express what we feel.
Procedure: Everything has a second life if we want it to, and this happens with all the materials that surround us. Instead of throwing them away or taking them to recycle, we can use them to do a little work at home, a sculpture, for example, and thus express what we feel in relation to something that has happened to us.
This is a good way to «get out» what we have inside that makes us feel sad.
Material: Things you have at home that you don’t want, such as plastic bottles, kitchen paper rolls, egg cartons…
6. Paint on our skin
Aim: Work creativity and concentration.
Procedure: Have you ever thought of painting yourself? With this activity, in addition to working on creativity and concentration, you will be able to express in your own skin what you feel at that moment.
You can also accompany those moments of connection between your skin and yourself with a relaxing melody or one that makes you feel good.
The results can be spectacular, since this exercise gives us a very important meaning for life: that both happy and sad moments pass, and this is a fact, since after finishing the drawing you make on your skin, with time will disappear.
Material: Colored pens or markers with which you can paint your skin and then erase it.
7. Make a poem
Aim: Develop creativity.
Procedure: This activity was already done by the Dadaists and consists of cutting out words from any newspaper or magazine you have on hand, then placing them in a ball and taking them out one by one.
Respecting the order in which you take them out of the bag, you have to build a poem. You will be surprised to know what the result of this exercise is and how, like the others, it helps you express what you feel.
Material: Magazines, newspapers, plastic bag, paper and pencil.
8. Capture Shadows
Aim: Know the world around us.
Procedure: Since we were little we have always played with the shadows, for this reason, in art therapy an activity in which they were the protagonists could not be missing.
Once we have left the house, we have to look for those shadows that we like the most and transfer them to paper, so that later, when we are at home, we can continue working on them.
This can be a good way to escape from our problems and focus on what makes us happy.
Material: Sketchbook and pencils.
9. Draw a happy memory
Aim: Arouse positive emotions.
Procedure: Currently, moments can be captured with mobile cameras.
But another way to capture them is by drawing them ourselves, because in this way, we will surely remember it in a different way than we would if we had photos, giving it that personal appreciation of the moment and adding another piece of that fabulous memory to our lives.
Material: Sketchbook and pencils.
10. Create a work from our name
Aim: Know ourselves.
Procedure: Do you know what emotions your name awakens in you? A very interesting exercise that will make you know yourself is to write your name on a piece of paper and from it make a work of art, a drawing.
You can choose both your name and your nickname, the important thing is that it be yours and that you feel identified by the way people around you call you. Although it may seem complicated, it is very interesting and fun to see the amount of feelings you can express from it.
Material: Sketchbook, pencils, pens, markers…
11. Create a Clay Sculpture of Anger
Aim: Express negative emotions through sculpture.
Procedure: A good way to express your negative emotions, and specifically anger, is by materializing it through clay.
The right moment to carry out this activity will be that moment in which you are angry about something that has happened to you. Simply take the clay and express what you feel at that moment by giving shape to the anger you feel so that later, if you see it necessary, break it and eliminate it completely with that fact.
Material: Clay and all the necessary materials.
12. Draw in the dark
Aim: Don’t judge your feelings.
Procedure: Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you listened to music and drew in the dark? With this activity you can. You simply have to put on the music that makes you feel both positive and negative emotions and let your imagination flow. on the paper with the light off.
This way, you won’t be able to judge what you’re drawing and this will prevent you from erasing and critiquing your artwork. When you think you’re done, you can turn on the light and get to know another part of yourself.
Material: Eadio, music CDs, sketchbook and pencils.
13. Balloon Activity
Aim: Free ourselves from those emotions that weigh us down.
Procedure: This is another way to eliminate those negative emotions that do not let us turn the page and be ourselves. In a note you can write, in any way you want, what does not let you be happy or that event that you wish had never happened, or even how you feel and why.
Later, you will inflate the balloon and by means of a string you will incorporate the paper where you have captured your emotions and feelings, and you will let it go. As the balloon recedes your negative feelings and emotions will recede with it.
Material: Balloon, rope, paper and pencil.
14. Take a picture of someone who changed your life
Aim: Remember a special person.
Procedure: We all have a special person who has been part of our life, both for better and for worse, and who must be remembered and accepted, since thanks to her we have been able to get to where we are today.
With the image of that person, we have to work and capture it on paper, and then color it. It would be nice if we could then give this drawing to the person we have portrayed, but if we prefer, we can also keep it.
Material: Sketchbook, pencil and colored pencils or markers, watercolor…
15. Drawing in the sand
Aim: Express ourselves through the arena.
Procedure: If you like the beach you can also practice this discipline through the sand, or if you don’t have the possibility to go there, you can do it with the sand you have near the garden, for example.
This activity consists of expressing yourself through the grains of sand, you can take a handful and spread them on a sheet of paper, to later shape it. In this way you will feel united to nature and you will be able to let off steam.
Material: Sand and sheet of paper.
16. Destroy objects
Aim: Eliminate negative emotions.
Procedure: On many occasions we are so deranged by something that has happened to us that we need to break things. Well, go ahead, in art therapy there is also an activity that consists of breaking objects such as plates, glasses or clay sculptures, to later rebuild them.
After all anger comes calm, after failures we learn from them and we rebuild and overcome them. This is a good way to learn that if something negative happens to us, we can be happy again and find our balance.
Material: Depending on the object you break, you will need some materials or others. Normally you will need glue and the object itself that you are going to break.
17. What scares us?
Aim: Face our own fear.
Procedure: We are all afraid of something or someone, be it an animal like a cockroach, or a scarecrow. The important thing is that we are aware that we have to face our fears, to overcome those negative emotions that can…