5 Easy Art Therapy Projects You Can Do Today

There are many benefits to art therapy, and you don’t have to have a lot of art supplies to engage with art therapy on your own or with clients. Below are five easy art therapy projects you can do that can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.

These exercises were adapted from Leah Guzman’s book Essential Art Therapy Exercises.

1. Collage

   Set an intention for the next 30 days. Using colorful paper, scissors, and a glue stick, arrange a mosaic that represents your intention.

2. Pencil Drawing

   Sit for 5 minutes and evaluate your current state of mind. What feelings are with you at this moment? Think of a landscape that could visually represent your current mood. Use a pencil to sketch the landscape you’ve visualized.

3. Journaling

   In a journal, as quickly as possible (without thinking too much), finish the following statements:

   1. I want

   2. I need

   3. I hope

   4. I expect

   5. I fear

   6. I wish

   7. I am

   8. I love

What surprises you about what you’ve written? What feelings come up? Spend 10 minutes reflecting on the statements you’ve written.

4. Watercoloring

Think about something you’re grateful for. Maybe it’s a person in your life, a place, an object, or an experience you recently had. What is the impact of this thing you’re grateful for in your life? When you think about how this has affected your life, what do you feel in your body? What emotions do you feel coming up? If you had to visualize these feelings, what qualities do they have, and what do they feel like in your body? Do they have colors? Shapes?

Are any images coming up? Name them to yourself. With a credit card, draw 2-3 boxes on watercolor paper. Write down the feelings that came up during the meditation at the bottom or top of the box if you wish. Then paint the feelings that came up.

You can use a variety of watercolor techniques, and experiment. These can be as abstract as you like, or you can draw them with a pencil first. This is your space to play. 

5. Dancing

Check in with yourself. What’s your current mood? What feelings do you want to evoke in the next 1-2 hours? Find a song on YouTube or in your music library that matches the feelings you want to embody. Listen to that song on headphones, and move your body the way it wants to.