What To Do When You Can't Draw Your Feelings ( 5 Tips from an Art Therapist)
When You Can’t Draw Your Feelings
Hello friends, today, I'll show you what you can do if you’re feeling stuck with trying to express your feelings through art.
You might have tried to do this exercise I shared previously, where I showed you how to draw or paint your emotions on paper. I know some of you might have a difficult time actually doing this activity. So today I am sharing easy hacks or tips that you can try to if you want to express yourself and use art as an outlet for your feelings.
I’m Youhjung and I do art therapy with people and make art for myself. The tips I’m sharing here are actually what I incorporate into my therapeutic art online sessions. Hopefully this can help you begin to release some blocks around making art to express your emotions.
You can also watch this video where I show you some demonstrations of the tips:
Practice Mindfulness
I realized that for many of you, it can feel very difficult to put our emotions onto paper.
This is because: (1) we're worried too much about the results and we are perfectionistic or judgmental, and (2) difficulty visualizing or getting in touch with the feeling.
First of all, it is quite common to feel this way. Drawing feelings is a very different endeavor, since it is not drawing something we see. We’re really trying to translate what we sense and feel in our bodies, into something that we can see with our eyes.
And that is why it’s important to let go of trying to drawing realistically. Rather than using our eyes to draw something realistically, it’s WAY more important to tune into our bodily sensations and use our intuition.
And how can we do that? By practicing mindfulness first and foremost. For those of you who experience difficulty in actually visualizing the sensation of the emotion (or the emotion itself), this is a great way to move through that block.
You can watch this previous video I made around how you can create art to practice mindfulness.
The 5 Tips for Expressing your Emotions through Art
Now let’s get into the 5 tips I have for you.
Use tissue paper to express your emotions
Do the emotions exercise (blog post here) but instead of using drawing or painting materials, use tissue paper instead. You can tear up the tissue paper or cut them up and paste them onto paper in different ways.
Using tissue paper is great because we have to rely more on our intuition and creative part of ourselves. When we use drawing or painting materials, we often get blocked by our ideas of what drawing or paintings “should” look like. When we use tissue paper in this way, we’re bypassing those blocks and using colors and shapes to express emotions.Use clay
Just as before, do the same exercise, but use clay this time instead of pencils or paint.
Clay is an awesome material to use because it can feel more intuitive and sensory-based. It’s easy to become invested in the art process, and it also has the benefit of grounding ourselves, thus, bringing us back into our body instead of being so stuck in our minds and overthinking everything.
Clay can also help us express our emotions in a three-dimensional way. We might be able to find nuances and insights that we couldn’t gain from two dimensional art.
Use collage (colored paper, magazines, etc)
Creating collage, instead of drawing or painting your emotions is also another great way to express yourself. I often incorporate this in my sessions with clients when they feel very hesitant about drawing or painting in general.
Collaging can give you a safe alternative to expressing your emotions because it doesn’t conjure up doubts about our skills or abilities oftentimes. Collaging is simply a process of picking and choosing images that you want to put down on paper.
Using existing material like magazines or patterned paper also gives us a sense of familiarity, which is great when we feel hesitant about making art.
Painting 1 or 2 colors as a starting point
Use just 1 or 2 colors max to paint your emotions. Pick a color or two that represents your feeling. Then cover your canvas/paper with that color.
Oftentimes, this can become a great starting point to further get into the painting process. You might want to add some lines, patterns, or shapes on top of the color you just laid down. Feel free to take it wherever it feels right for you.
Many people get stuck in actually starting the art-making process. That’s why this tip can help you get started without thinking too much, and move past that block.
Blackout poetry + drawing/painting
This last tip might involve more words than images in the beginning, but I share this because this can be a great stepping stone for you to start drawing or painting.
What you’ll do is take a page from a book, magazine, or any other material that has writing in it. Bring a black marker and “black out” or cross out most of the words on the page, except for the ones you want to leave. Basically you are only leaving words that resonate with you on an emotional level, perhaps words that reflect your emotions. At the end, you’ll see that the words you left out will make up a sentence or a poem.
After you got your poem, you can use pencils, markers, or paint to add some colors onto the page, or even add a drawing or painting next to it. Perhaps you create an image that goes along with that poem.
I know this can be difficult to do alone, so if you really want an experienced person to guide you, and be able to express and explore your feelings, find the right-fitting art therapist or therapeutic art facilitator in my Visionary Hall! Members in this Hall have went through and completed my Visionary (Art Therapists) Course/Program and are ready to see clients.
With that said, I hope that you can try these tips out. Thanks and see you next time!
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