Colored Pencils Art Therapy Activity for Feelings

Colored Pencils Art as Therapy activity For Feelings

Hello friends, today, I'll show you how to make therapeutic art with colored pencils for your feelings and emotional awareness.

This therapeutic art-making exercise will help you become more aware of your emotions and understand them through using the simple art material - colored pencils.

I’m Youhjung and I have been helping people through art therapy & therapeutic art for years and I am sharing this with you and invite you to do some self care art-making.

Make sure you're in safe, quiet place where you will not be disturbed during the creative process.

If want to watch the step by step video tutorial where I share the exercise in detail you can see it here:

 WATCH HERE

Art Materials You Need

The materials you need are:

• colored pencils

• Drawing paper

Mindfulness and Intention

First, set an intention to make art today. Perhaps it is to relieve stress or to explore your emotions.

And also, do some breathing to align yourself into a more focused, creative mode.

The therapeutic art Prompt

Now that you are ready, here are the steps:

1. Fold the paper into 4 parts (fold it in half, and one more time in half)

2. In each part, depict an emotion from this list - happy, anxious, sad, angry.

Each emotion depicted should be as different from one another as possible (their lines, colors, and forms should look different).

If it helps, remember when you experienced that particular emotion, re-experience that feeling, and create a distinctive image of it using colors, lines, and shapes.

During the process, remember there is no right or wrong way to do this.

Each of us experience emotions differently and there are no rules to follow.

This is a great way to gain understanding and reflect on your emotional experiences.

Using colors, shapes, lines is a safe way to begin to identify and manage your emotions when what you are feelings is complex, chaotic, and confusing.

Emotions can become a problem when we don't know how to deal with it - we might become overwhelmed, or we might run away from them using substances, or we might not express them at all.

However, emotions are fundamental to human experience. It is a signal coming from within - a sign that something must be done.

Because it is simply a signal, it comes and goes when it has done its job. It's like a wave. Art helps us calmly experience the emotions.

We need to know that emotional expression is important - we have to learn that not only expressing emotions is acceptable but also that it is stress reducing and life enhancing.

Reflective Writing

After you have finished the work bring a pen and a journal/notebook to write with. To reflect on our art-making process and the artwork, let’s do some writing.

Write down the answers to these questions:

• How are each emotion different?

• What sensory words come to mind for each?

• If you could do another one for other feelings, what would they be?

BONUS - do this again, and this time with painting! Come up with other emotions too.

I hope you enjoyed this exercise. Make sure to pin this or bookmark it for whenever you need to come back to it in the future. Also, share this post with a friend or family.

Thanks, and I’ll talk to you next time!

P.S. Curious about therapeutic art and want to learn how to facilitate it or incorporate it in your work to help others? Then I’ve got the ✨perfect✨ resource for you. My Therapeutic Art Facilitation School course is THE place where you can learn the foundations of therapeutic art work. I teach you my step by step signature method of using therapeutic art to help people, even if you’re just starting (no artist or therapist background needed). Want to learn how to do this? Check out my therapeutic art course here.

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