No Excuses Art Journaling Making Time for Creativity Pdf

The holidays are finally here, bringing an onslaught of family, food and, for many of us, stress on stress. Whether y'all're dreading endless conversations with your smashing aunt Judith or getting anxious over the prospect of impending New Year'south resolutions, may we humbly suggest you permit your creative side serve every bit a sort of internal massage.

Fine art therapy is a form of therapy predicated on the belief that artistic expression has the ability to help us in healing, in self-esteem or merely in chilling out. It'south unique in that almost other forms of therapy rely on language as the foremost style of communication, whereas art requires something dissimilar, something harder to define.

Nosotros're not art therapists, and the techniques below are but suggestions based on practices familiar to the art therapy community. But for those hungry for a creative outlet to relieve the tension that tends to build upward this time of yr, the practices below may aid. They require few materials and no artistic groundwork -- in fact, the less art you make, the better. The following suggestions are less nigh the terminal product, and more than about the transformation that occurs along the way.

Behold, 37 art therapy techniques to help you relax this season.

1. Design a postcard you don't intend to transport

Whether information technology's a love note to someone you're not ready to confess your feelings to, or an angry rant you lot know is better left unsaid, sometimes enumerating all the details helps debunk the outcome at hand. While writing the text can be therapeutic in its own right, designing the postcard gives even more value to the object. It also allows you to activate different portions of your encephalon while relaxing in a manner similar to coloring in a coloring volume. In one case you toss that signed and sealed letter in the trash (or constrict information technology away in a drawer), yous'll detect its message has lost some of its power.

2. Cut and paste a painting to create a collage

Create a painting on a material like paper or cardboard. When y'all're finished, cut or tear it upward. Then employ the pieces as building blocks for a new artwork -- a collage. See how your original artwork transforms into something new and heady, something unpredictable. This practise illuminates the close proximity between creation and destruction, encouraging usa to take risks to push button ourselves creatively and in other aspects of life.

iii. Build an altar to a loved i

Accept inspiration from folk fine art and create an altar honoring a unique relationship betwixt yous and some other person, living or not. Decorate the shrine with photographs, letters and relics of memorable times spent together, as well as new art objects you've created in their honor. Anything can go artistic material, from gifts you lot've exchanged to a candy wrapper you know your subject would love. Edifice a totem to another person awakens memories and creates a physical manifestation of a relationship that can provide comfort in tough times.

4. Draw in full darkness

So much of the stress we feel when making art comes from the judgments and criticism that seem unavoidable every step of the way. Endeavour creating artwork in total darkness to make fine art complimentary from that art critic within your head. Think of it as a course of bullheaded contour cartoon. You're suddenly freed up to create lines, shapes and patterns only because you lot experience like you lot should. When you plough dorsum on the lights, we doubtable y'all'll exist surprised by what you observe.

5. Watercolor your bodily country

Lie down and close your eyes. Visualize your body equally you breathe in and out. Effort to imagine your breath as a item color equally it enters your body, some other color every bit it exits. What do you see? Depict an outline of a torso on a large sheet of newspaper, and inside, create a watercolor based on your bodily land. Think about what these colors mean to you, where they are densest, where they are nigh opaque. Recall of this as the nearly relaxing self-portrait you'll always create.

vi. Create a Zentangle-inspired creation

Zentangle is a cartoon method invented by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, designed to brand drawing meditative and accessible to all. To learn the official method you must be taught by a Zentangle Teacher, only y'all can recreate the basic idea on your ain. Use a slice of paper, cut into a 3.5-inch foursquare piece, and draw a freehand border around the border in light pencil. So use your pencil to depict a curved line or squiggle inside the border, called a "cord."

Now switch to a pen and begin drawing a "tangle," a series of patterns and shapes effectually your "string" and voila! You got yourself a Zentangle. The procedure is designed to encourage deliberate, ritual creation and allow room for human error -- no erasing, that'due south confronting the rules. Traditional Zentangles are always blackness and white but we fully back up experimenting with color. The entire process shouldn't take more than xv minutes, and can exist repeated whenever you feel the urge. Keep some squares handy then yous can always create when inspiration strikes.

7. Produce a permission slip

Think of the societal and self-imposed pressures you feel on a day-to-day ground, the personal traits y'all see as faults, the natural slips y'all run across every bit errors. Choose one of these things and requite yourself, in ornamental item, permission to practise just that. Turning 1 simple defeat into an accomplishment tin minimize feelings of self-hatred, allowing you to achieve more than of your important goals. Call up, it's an fine art project, so brand it pretty.

8. Write a constitute poem

Don't consider yourself a poet? Let someone else do the hard part of coming up with the words by grabbing your material from sometime books, magazines, newspapers or fifty-fifty letters. Cutting out words that jump out at or inspire you. Collage your found materials just as you would a visual collage. Yous tin have a topic or story in mind at the beginning, or merely get started and run across where your discussion collaging takes you lot.

ix. Arts and crafts a mark-making tool unique to you lot

Instead of spending the bulk of your time on an actual painting, why not focus a piddling of that attention on crafting an culling paintbrush all your ain? Y'all can make a mark-making tool out of nearly anything, whether it's a row of toothpicks glued to a paper-thin base and dipped in paint, or a DIY paintbrush made from pom-poms and yarn. When y'all finally go around to actually making a piece with your new tool, you will have relinquished some of your creative command to your distinct artistic medium, which, of course, is a work of art in itself.

x. Brand a forgiveness box

If there is a certain person -- including yourself -- you lot don't desire to harbor negative emotions toward any longer, try making him or her a forgiveness box. Decorate a small box with soothing images and words that tin be either specific to an individual or catered to your desired inner state. Yous tin can write the person's name on a sideslip of paper and include it in the box if preferred, and the proper name tin be removed and exchanged if needed. The deed of making the box volition bring upwardly happy memories of whomever the box is for, also as help you physically work toward a place of forgiveness.

xi. Create a colour collage

Color has the ability to affect our moods. Sometimes, however, instead of using color to transform our current state of mind, it's helpful to take a moment to delve deep into the color you're currently experiencing. Feeling hot-tempered and uninhibited? Cutting and paste orange images that fit your mood. Working within your current emotional state can aid y'all make sense of why you're feeling the way yous're feeling and realize that, possibly, information technology's not such a bad place to be.

12. Make a power mask

Nearly ofttimes we call back of wearing a mask as a way to hide something almost ourselves, but sometimes this layer of protection and anonymity makes the states experience liberated and actually aids in expressing something true, hard and real. Create a power mask, filled with symbols that brand you feel stiff (think of an role player's costume or athlete'southward helmet). You tin put information technology on when preparing for a rough situation -- whether it's dinner with the extended family unit or giving a voice communication at work -- and testify to yourself y'all tin can accomplish the job at manus with or without the mask.

thirteen. Construct a holiday "anti-calendar"

All also frequently calendars are jam-packed with chores, obligations and responsibilities, making the coming days a point of stress more than than solace. Try making a DIY advent calendar, which we've dubbed an anti-calendar. Instead of giving yourself a chocolate each day, treat yourself to a compliment, a doodle, an inspiring quote or an encouraging mandate such as "eat breakfast in bed today." If all goes according to plan, y'all could find yourself billowy out of bed each morn like a kid on Christmas.

14. Start a putter chain

Fact: Information technology's incommunicable for a doodle to look bad. Once you give in to the endless possibilities that occur when wiggly line meets unidentified shape, you'll find it dangerously hard to end drawing. Start a doodle-centric have on exquisite corpse with a friend or loved ane to loosen your attachment to your creation. Information technology's pretty magical to picket your lone squiggle bloom into a spindly beast earlier your eyes. You can also endeavour this with a pen-pal for a more productive spin on chain mail.

15. Draft a portrait of a past self

We're not talking about by lives here, but versions of yourself y'all feel similar you lot've either lost impact with or outgrown. Whether yous're revisiting a phase of innocence, ignorance or just plain departure, using the space between memory and imagination as your subject helps illuminate how malleable your self really is. It feels almost like reading your quondam diary for the kickoff time in years.

16. Build a wishing tree

Take a cue from her majesty Yoko Ono and build a physical object to hold your wildest dreams. Use either a real plant or a tree-like object you create yourself, write your wishes down on paper and hang them, one by one. You can invite others to practise the same. Writing your hopes and dreams on paper brings you a small step closer to making them real. Not to mention, the little papers resemble blossoming flowers from far away.

17. Paint your own personal set of Russian dolls

Though we're congenital a picayune differently -- mainly, non out of woods -- we too have different layers nestled within us at all times. What is the self you portray to others? What about to your most trusted loved ones? What remains hidden underneath? You can either purchase a set of dolls and paint over them or paint atop a set of cardboard gift boxes or other stackable objects. Feel gratis to utilise images and words to recreate the layers you envision when you call up of yourself.

18. Add on to a masterpiece

Intimidated past a glaring sheet of blank paper? Yeah, united states as well. Instead of starting from scratch, effort adding onto a sheet yous already know and dear to boost your confidence and lower the chance. Whether you're applying makeup to the Mona Lisa or filling in the blanks of a Paul Klee paintings with your own brand of alien creatures, we're certain the original artists would be honored by your tribute. Who knows? You could get a famed appropriation creative person in the process.

nineteen. Assemble a safe infinite

This is for the architects among the states. Call up building a pillow fort as a child? That cozy, secret space for you and just you? Take inspiration from the five-year-old inside and build yourself a grown-up fort -- ahem, an art installation. Yous tin create a full-blown tent if you wish or simply arrange meaningful items in a closet or under the bed. Incorporate nostalgic objects, sometime toys or blankets, twinkly lights -- anything that makes you feel removed from the globe effectually you. Put on a soothing song and permit the good feelings wash over you.

20. Use crayons

Yup, it's that simple. At that place'southward something about the crayon's blunt tip and uneven method of coloring that is at in one case frustrating and liberating. Yes, it's hard to depict a straight line. Yes, information technology'southward near impossible to colour in a space without it looking patchy. Only that's exactly the indicate. Allow your artistic imperfections to float to the surface and learn to cherish every man error in your creation. Whatsoever work you create will be distinctly yours, even if it'south not quite museum-worthy.

21. Brand an invisible New year's resolution visible (and cute)

New year's day's resolutions. How did something then seemingly restorative plow into something then incredibly stressful? Instead of promising yourself to floss more than or consume less, focus some attention on an invisible accomplishment, something that's either also big or likewise minor to see with your optics. Instead of writing it in the notebook with the rest of your resolutions, devote some time to making your personal goal into a beautiful object, a visual mantra that inspires you but upon seeing it.

22. Create a memory jug

Retentivity jugs originated with members of Africa'due south Bakongo communities, who believed the physical world was connected to the spiritual world by water. They often decorated graves with water-centric items like jugs to connect deceased spirits to the waterways that would lead them to the afterlife. The ritual was revived recently as a form of found art sculpture, or 3D scrapbooking. Use lacquer to adhere found objects to a vase, jug or pot -- whether they remind y'all of a specific person, recall a certain time in your life, or just make you smile.

23. Exercise a doodle a day

You lot know what's difficult? Taking time out of a hectic schedule to create a work of art when you have admittedly no idea where to start. You know what's easy? Taking a few minutes to suspension from your day and scribble out a little weirdness, just for the sake of keeping that paw moving. Divide each page of a sketchbook into fourths and create i unproblematic drawing every solar day -- actually, if you draw a happy face as your falling asleep it's okay. Just getting into the artistic rhythm will get your imagination churning. Soon you lot'll experience more comfy with your artistic style and be struck by inspiration during your daily routine. You may fifty-fifty desire to spend more than v minutes on a drawing someday. Just worry not, doodles always look adept.

24. Shed your old skin into a sculpture

Okay, this is far less creepy than it sounds. This suggestion is for those doing some early bound cleaning or getting rid of old holding -- exist they clothes, papers, glasses, buttons, defunct technologies. Instead of tossing abroad your old junk, use the materials to create a sculpture of a erstwhile self, immortalizing the (insert advisable adjective here) yr that was 2014. The sculpture does not have to (and probably won't) expect like yous; information technology can exist abstract, geometric, organic or all of the higher up. Even if the materials seem meaningless now, they'll go treasures with the passing of time, and the ceremony of creating the sculpture provides dandy closure in moving on to the new year.

25. Use your not-dominant hand to create

Yous know that Pablo Picasso quote, "All children are artists. The trouble is how to remain an artist once he grows upwardly"? Firstly, make that "he" a "he or she." Now, channel this Picasso-ian sentiment by unlearning anything you lot've ever learned about style, control and discipline by passing your pencil to the other hand. Before you know it, you'll accept the uncertain, wiggly, unfettered stroke of a kid -- and thus, by the transitive Picasso principle, of a bona fide artist.

26. Craft an intention stick

Whether you lot call them intention sticks, prayer sticks, wish sticks or talismans, their purpose is the same: to provide a physical object for you to wrap your hands around and bring you strength also every bit peace of mind. Intention sticks, which accept roots in Hopi and Tibetan traditions, gain their ability from the positive free energy posited in the stick during its creation -- so basically, brand certain yous're in a good mood when yous brand it! Find a stick that fits perfectly in your hands, recollect of it like a magic wand, paint it and decorate it with mantras or intentions close to your heart. Add cord, feathers, glitter, beads and any else you wish and keep the stick in a undercover place for when you need information technology most.

27. Make your own stencil

If you're having trouble embarking on an artwork itself, how about starting with the artistic medium instead? You lot can make a DIY stencil from a cardboard box, playing menu, cereal box -- the list continues. Use pair of scissors to cut out a shape all your own and y'all tin can brand your imprint, quite literally, on any future artworks or random pieces of paper you happen to encounter. Don't worry about straight lines and perfect proportions; with a handmade stencil, the more rugged the better.

28. Turn your fears into a (literal) monster

Sometimes the only way to lessen your fears is to confront them head on. Think about something that frightens you, whether it's "spiders," "being a bad artist," "going bankrupt" or "losing my style." Give this fear a shape, a color and a texture; it can exist every bit abstract or symbolic every bit you wish. Creating the animate being outside of yous will strip your fear of some of its power, especially when comparing information technology to the (now ofttimes silly) fears nosotros all had as a child.

29. Craft your own dream guardian

You've heard of a dreamcatcher. We're tweaking the tradition a niggling fleck, thus freeing up the possibilities of what shapes your new dream guardian tin can accept. Create a dangling sculpture to hang above your bed that will spotter over you while you sleep. Feel free to use the traditional willow hoop with feathers and beads, or veer off track and become experimental with fabric, bells, photos, or whatever brings you peace of mind. Presently you lot'll have a new friend to keep an eye on yous as your dreams sweep y'all off into another world.

thirty. Make a painting with no tools but your body

Don't have the time (or the funds) to invest in a new batch of art tools? No worries, all you demand to get artistic is your own beautiful body. Explore the possibilities of your ain anatomy -- the plush curves of your fingertip, the precipitous edge of your nail, the capabilities of mitt and foot and fifty-fifty hair, if yous're feeling assuming. Non only will your canvas stop up looking unexpectedly magnificent, but you lot'll probably resemble a piece of work of art yourself.

31. Revamp a stuffed animal

Nosotros've been dying to give this one a get since we caught a glimpse of Jenny Ottinger's latest exhibition, in which she conducts slightly botched surgeries on stuffed teddy bears, producing jumbled creatures at in one case adorable and creepy. Nosotros'd recommend a less frightening version for a therapeutic consequence. Take a love childhood toy and transform information technology into a piece of work of art, either past patching its holes, replacing its ragged parts or going a more than avant-garde route. You lot'll finally exist able to return your dearest teddy to its rightful spot on your bed, while proudly displaying an original objet d'art.

32. Arts and crafts a retentiveness rock

Next time you have a special twenty-four hour period, take a home a free gift in the class of a rock -- or a receipt, or a brochure, or a leaf; annihilation volition exercise the trick really. Call it your new canvas. Decorate your new keepsake with memories from throughout the twenty-four hours -- however abstract or physical your creative self desires. If yous're feeling painter's block, use the natural creases and edges of the stone to guide your aesthetic decisions. A few memory rocks down the road, yous'll have a stone garden that instantly conjures recollections of your well-nigh joyous days, to help with the glum ones.

33. Channel Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Brief art history primer: Giuseppe Arcimboldo was a 16th century Italian painter primarily known for his surreal self-portraits fabricated from painted objects like fruit, veggies, books and fish. Channel good ole Giuseppe with objects that mean something to you. Whether y'all describe, paint or collage, create a version of that precious punam of yours fabricated from the objects that help define you or make your eye flutter -- whether information technology'southward your canis familiaris, sunflowers or the In-North-Out logo.

34. Make an ephemeral artwork

Exercise the art of letting go by creating a work of art with an expiration date. Work with a material that erodes with fourth dimension -- whether it's a sand castle that washes away in the sea, a chalk mural that fades in the dominicus, or a drawing attached to a balloon and prepare into flying. You know what they say, f y'all dear something, ready it free!

35. Pigment a mirror or window

Overhaul the concept of a blank sail by selecting a surface that already tells a vivid story. Use pigment to a mirror or window, and permit your brushstrokes mingle with whatever'due south already gracing your uncanny canvas -- be it a snowy solar day or your own reflection. Just think of it every bit makeup'southward mode artsier 2nd cousin.

36. Turn a periodical entry into a work of art

Whether y'all're drawing inspiration from last week's misadventure or your third grade trials and tribulations, why not creative a visual adaptation of your own commencement-person narration? Have an erstwhile journal entry -- one that was particularly poignant, difficult, joyous, or totally arbitrary -- and recreate the text as imagery. Experience free to depict, paint, collage, whatever can best express the atmosphere of that i 24-hour interval.

37. Blueprint your (artsy) spirit animal

Exercise y'all accept a spirit animal? Take y'all never been quite satisfied with the classic genus and species currently available to you? Here'south your adventure to craft the imaginary hybrid creature of your wildest fantasies. From a liger to a jellyfish-dragon to a pegasus-zebra, the only limit to the wild animals bachelor to you are the zoological limits of your mind.

This mail service is based on a series of art therapy roundups we've published throughout the past year.

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