Easy Mindful Art Journaling Ideas for Beginners | 15 Self Art Therapy Exercises

if you'd like to try some easy art activities to relax at home i'm so excited today to share with you 15 art therapy exercises and mindful art journaling activities to help spark your creativity and get you creating at home welcome back to my channel if this is your first time my name is cynthia with mindful creative muse and here on this channel we share creative and calming practices for self-care largely mindful art practices also known as meditative art so today we'll be doing something a little bit different i'll be sharing some of my work from an art therapy group that i attend with some friends and a registered art therapist as well as some mindful art journaling prompts and sharing some approaches that i take to create without judgment and giving myself permission i'll be creating another video later about the differences between mindful art and art therapy because this definitely is not art therapy that we do here at mindful creative news so i'll be sharing more information about the benefits of mindful art for now let's dive right in this first prompt might look familiar to you i call this draw the breath it is a drawing breath meditation and i do have a whole second video all about this i'll link it in the description box below if you're curious to hear about the entire process it's pretty simple you can do it in just a couple of minutes and it's really great to become present with your breath with the moment and to create images from that so it's great to really calm down the nervous system and to just de-stress so you can do this in a few minutes on your lunch break or if you don't have a lot of time all of these art therapy exercises and mindful art journaling prompts i'll be sharing with you today are invitations the focus is on the process not the final product and so with that everything will look and feel very different for everyone that's because we're having our own process i'm going to bring this up a little bit closer so this next prompt the second prompt is where do you feel stuck so this is with acrylic as well as micron pens some white oil based pens and markers as well and this is slightly smaller i want to show two examples because i did explore this prompt twice so this is another example which as you can see looks very different so this again is that art therapy exercise prompt where do you feel stuck with any of these prompts you can also explore them via creative writing poetry soul collage which i also share on this channel and in my online courses you can explore it through movement through sound there's so many different ways it's really whatever is speaking to you so i hope any of these art therapy exercises or mindful art journaling prompts spark your interest to explore that in whatever way it means for you this next prompt can really be interpreted in two ways it can be in the form of a question where do you get your strength it also can just be interpreted as growth or transformation so having that as an intention before you begin considering growth or transformation in your life as if many of you have seen my other meditative watercolor doodling videos or my mandalas and mindful mandalas i create and teach this is similar to that in that i began in the center and worked my way out so you might notice that for yourself as well with anything that you create you'll have your own marks that you might return to again and again artists notice this with different motifs as they create collections of work or create their signature styles so you might just notice that when you are creating i wanted to briefly show another image still with the same prompt of where do you get your strength this is with charcoal markers and colored pencils so again i just wanted to show how different it can look and feel with the exact same prompt and it'll definitely vary with in between individuals and also within the same individual so you can always return back to these prompts over and over again and see what's shifting and changing for you so i love with many of these prompts that they're really simple and they're open to interpretation which for me gives a lot of freedom as i explore these or as i share them with my student so again so much about mindful art journaling is about giving yourself permission to create and express yourself without judgment so this next prompt is simply one word and that word is treasure so i created two again with this this is with charcoal as well as the micron pens a little bit of colored pencil in this area i'm going to bring this up a little bit closer so again for me you can see that continuation of these organic shapes and lines this is another symbol that seems to come up often in my artwork recently that sort of bead or thread coming down so again this prompt is treasure so i did explore this one twice as well so i'm going to show this other one and i when i was working on this i was moving the page all around so that's something i do often with my mandalas especially if i'm working in a round shape i seem to turn it quite frequently but even in a square rectangular journal i am frequently turning the page to see it from different perspectives and that might be rooted from a lot of my original abstract painting experience and trainings because very frequently with abstract work there's that focus of rotating the page and changing your perspective so again this is still that treasure uh prompt so another one word prompt here this one is possibilities now this image is actually a much smaller second piece from a larger uh work that i explored and played around with i think it was a 16 by 20 and it was on black paper um so this was one image or symbol that was in the other one that i felt especially drawn to that really clarified for me what i was feeling around possibilities so that's something you can also do again you can play with these prompts multiple times and you can find a small subsection within one piece and do that again i could also work with just this image and then make a second one expanding sort of allowing that conversation to finish so if i were to expand across the same idea this is one of my favorite art therapy exercises that we explored with my group and this is larger and in a larger journal pad still with watercolors and the micron and another marker again that's just the style that i've been really drawn to especially lately but the media can look very different for you as well as your approach and your style um so this prompt as you can see it starts to incorporate some words as well as with images this could be a fun one to explore with soul collage as well as writing afterwards anyone that's familiar with soul collage knows the writing process afterwards and again i share that here on the channel so this art therapy exercise prompt is what are your values so it can be really nice i notice anytime i explore mindful art journaling prompts or questions i often call them creative writing prompts anytime i explore that it's nice to give myself some space to sit with it in this instance the question or prompt of what are your values i made a longer list of many values and then chose the three that were most speaking to me and i only chose them after i already had um created the image so i sort of let them simmer as i was creating the image and then because i had these three panels decided to include the three words so i only mentioned that to say there's absolutely no right or wrong this was just my experience it might look and feel very different for you so you could explore just as ideas you could explore different artworks with each word so this is another one i'll get to later but this is one of my meditative watercolor doodling practices so you can see i included just one word an intention for gratitude on this one so there's again endless possibilities here i have this also on the one page but what i'm thinking of doing is i will probably cut these out and then i will either frame them all together or frame them individually so it can be nice to create on one page and then break it up later i could also have um cut into this many times i mention as a prompt if you are not liking something that you're working with to break free of that you can also just start to cut or rip what you've created as well to create something entirely new so total side topic but a little mindful art tip there so we will move on now to meditative watercolor doodling i'm going to show a few different ways you can approach these um so this is really a combination of my mindful mandalas practice that i started and created several years ago i have other videos about that that i'll link below again with these are watercolors and again using that micron pen i typically begin at the center and i lay the paint down first and then make the marks so really so the paint can inform the marks i'm making so you might be able to see here there's this separation so this is where i have the purple watercolor down and this is actually just the blank page in the background but you can see kind of this line or mark that's created so um there's also sometimes a cauliflow what that's called a cauliflower effect that can happen with the paint that i love working wet into wet and so i really accentuate that with my marks but much of this practice is about moving very slowly giving yourself some space it can be great to de-stress and relax again there's no right or wrong and you can always make the marks first and then paint on top of it this is just my preferred method recently so moving on there's another approach which i mentioned briefly earlier which is you can do the meditative watercolor doodling but you can have it with an intention before you begin or as you create it you can see these different marks i'm making here there are some dots that are being incorporated lots of organic lines having some areas where it might be darker filled in and then having some space and again varying the type of lines whether they're smooth or jagged because of what i'm seeing in the image and because of what i'm feeling so i also have a pinterest board if you're on pinterest that i use for inspiration sometimes for mark making so i will link that below if you want to check that out so then lastly still playing around with these meditative watercolor doodlings and doodling mindful art exercises is to think of or reflect on a relationship in your life or a situation in your life it could be something that you're struggling with at the moment it might just be something you feel really grateful for and excited about so giving yourself about five minutes before you even begin it all you could have eyes closed or open just to reflect on that situation or that person you might want to notice how you're feeling i offer guided meditations regarding this and i have a lot more in my courses that'll walk you through it but i like to use that as an initial prompt and so this um image then i create marks as i'm feeling i can let that thought go i'm not intentionally consciously then thinking about the marks i'm making i'm just allowing that to come out still with this container or intention of creating a meditative watercolor doodle so so i can sort of let my brain rest i'm not having to think about what am i going to create completely i know i'm going to be creating in this circle i know the materials i'm using i've had this time to reflect on this relationship or this situation and now i'm giving myself permission to make marks without judgment and so you can see that this looks and feels very different than these first two they'll always change but what i'm especially curious about is i started to have these new marks that hadn't appeared in my previous watercolor doodles that i see as sort of a suture or a stitch so you'll notice that you'll have new things that might arrive for you and then you can always do a writing process after this again i have journaling prompts and a whole mindful mandalas affirmation process that i share in my courses but you can decide to just journal for five minutes afterwards to give yourself space you can be curious about how you felt while you made this and perhaps what you see afterwards when you look at it it's entirely up to you this is one that's still in progress so i haven't spent as much time so you can do these meditative watercolor doodling really quickly you can spend more time on them i spent a considerable different amount of time between these two i think i had an extra 20 minutes or so on this one here so what i love about this practice as well is even if you dip your toes in and you do a little bit you can always come back and add to it so i'll be starting a 30-day mindful art challenge here that i hope you'll join me for or if you're seeing this later that you re-watch it with me but sometimes if i come to a blank piece of paper or blank canvas and i don't know what to create then i can step in really quickly i already have this piece that i can then immediately start making marks this next art therapy exercise shared in my group that i attend is really one of my favorites as well and this is the invitation to make a piece of artwork using beginning with and using a letter of the alphabet so i chose the letter o it started to transition for me into the letter c as i moved through the marks and then let go of that completely so i'm just going to rotate this around as i worked i was constantly turning the page and when i finished i sort of ended up that this feels right for me that this would be the right way up but again that's totally open to interpretation this is another constriction right it's a creative limitation so if we come to the page and i have that intention or that prompt of choose a letter of the alphabet to begin making marks with it can help alleviate any stress or pressure that i may have on myself coming to a blank piece of paper or blank canvas of what am i going to create today it also will be new every time you come to it again there you can explore this so many times even if you explore the same letter it will inevitably come out different and look different when you come back to it later and then again i did a writing process after this just to i love to make meaning of the marks i make and to delve in deeper and understand why i made some of those marks so that's my preference that's something i share in a lot of my courses and my other online work but that's definitely up to you if you're curious about some of the marks you're making what they might mean to you there's different ways you can kind of step into that so this prompt is actually an expressive arts activity um it began with sensing into the body noticing sensations in the body this prompt and focus was around the spine so you can choose any body part that you'd like to focus on for that time use for your meditation if you'd like to call it that what i often recommend is if you're sensing into the body to notice what's speaking to you loudest at that time so oftentimes something that's speaking to you loudest might be asking for your attention in this case the prompt was given specifically around using the spine that you can vary it every single time depending on what's calling you most so this again as you notice with my materials doesn't vary too much as far as mark making these are with watercolors and micron pens but what i love about this is i wanted to show how this made a week before my next image and even though they're entirely different prompts how they informed each other so this prompt here which was delightful or blessings is the prompt delightful or blessings was the art therapy exercise prompt um you can see how these two at least i see when i look at them um they have really similar color palettes they have really similar shapes really similar marks it was almost like coming back to the same conversation a few days or a week later i think these were made within three or four days of each other i didn't consciously think about it until after i had sort of this lotus flower created that then i instantly remembered oh my goodness that was so similar to my spine drawing and sensation meditation that i did so i just find that so fascinating i've always loved being surprised by that and i think that when we create from a space of allowing ourselves to make marks without judgment and with giving ourselves permission to do that i often call it collaborating with chance one of my professors art professors said that many years ago and collaborating with chance for me means that there's spaciousness there's openness to be surprised by what wants to come out um there's not as much rigidity i'm not trying to create a certain thing ahead of time and that actually offers a lot of freedom for me and for many of my students the restriction or limitation is within the prompts or within the materials so we're not overwhelmed with our decisions but we can still be surprised with what we're making so i'm just going to come in a little bit closer here i just want to show some of the intricacies and the line work this again is similar to the other threads i used with that kind of tree twisting shape these are a little more straight but in this case i focused on that outlining first and then made the marks and again still playing around with some of that cauliflowering in the wet on wet technique and then allowing myself to make the shapes from that so i had no idea i was planning on creating a lotus flower here um a lotus flower didn't come to me when i considered that prompt of delightful or blessings actually what came up for me is i saw a like flame a spark of flame which represented joy and having a liveness and passion so that's why i started with these colors and it still has that kind of flame-esque shape to it that i see but really how that unfolded and transformed as i was making it is part of why i love these practices because again we just don't know what is going to come out and this really allows us to express what might be resting beneath the surface without necessarily using words also without needing to understand it again if you're working with an art therapist they'll have other tools and ways to help you process that but this work that we're doing focusing on mindful art journaling is not art therapy it really is giving ourselves space to create without judgment giving ourselves permission and then making meaning of our marks for ourselves if that's something additional that you'd like to do so we're coming close to the end here almost the last prompt again this is two parts for the images this is a really fun um deep lovely expressive arts activity that i love this is what i like to call mapping out your year so so far we're in the month of september 2020 so each dot represents a month this is january moving through september and i allowed myself here to make marks using colors and shapes based on how i was feeling from what i remember moving through the year and that's totally open to interpretation again we have our own ways of making marks choosing colors red might mean something different to me than it might mean to you so choosing to just focus on your own work here but this is what i began with i spent a shorter amount of time here maybe just five to ten minutes making these marks and then moved into the second part which i'll show here in a moment so mapping out your year moving from this to this i spent more time here about 20 to 30 minutes using that initial image as just another prompt so stepping away from being as specific i'm mapping out my year to looking at that original image that i created and giving myself more space and time to expand upon that again sort of continuing that thought and so here i'm using watercolors and micron pens just those two things i love that it's really simple i'm a minimalist at heart and in many ways in my life and i also like really minimal supplies with my art you can see sort of the connection here right so it kind of follows that same um tracing if i were to trace this initial shape kind of this can congested or this larger part here dipping down and then coming back up it's very similar but in many ways there's a lot of differences as well what i love about this is that it can start to transform even as you create it um i can choose to transform certain parts as i'm creating it and the same goes for you as well but again you can do this with words you could do it with soul collage you could create a similar to a vision board there's lots of different options but that intention or the art therapy exercise or expressive arts exercise prompt is mapping out your year so this is our 15th art therapy exercise and mindful art journaling prompt i do have a bonus one if you've made it this far here at the end in a moment so this one this prompt is transitions and so i'm just going to kind of start at the top so you can see i'll come in a little bit closer this prompt is transitions and what immediately came to me that darker purple line that's here in the center was sort of the image that i had originally so that's how i like to work i often when i hear a question or a prompt i'll sort of have a spark of an image that will come up and then i follow that impulse that may or may not happen for you it's similar to when i share meditations or guided visualizations some people are visual some people might hear something you may not have anything come up you might just have a felt sense about something or notice your sensations you may just come to the page with that prompt and allow that impulse of whatever wants to come out to be created and again everybody has their own process this is also a piece that i rotated a lot as i was working so i love how in this direction it sort of reminds me of a landscape again with that transitions theme um for me i can still feel into transitions and having this kind of new growth and transformation um but i definitely encourage this rotating and moving of your page as you're working or afterwards as well to just notice how different it might feel in each area and then just from an aesthetic standpoint because with mindful art journaling there's that balance of you're creating just purely to create for the process but also kind of playing around with different marks and aesthetics you may notice as you rotate it that something feels like it's you know something else is needed and you might want to go in so you might decide actually i feel like i want something in that corner and then by rotating it it gives you just another perspective so that prompt is transitions so you made it this far 15 art therapy exercises and mindful art journaling prompts you're here at the end i hope that you have found some inspiration sparked or some things that you want to try this is a final one i wanted to share with you and this one is transformation it also can be considered as paths um so there's so many different ways but i began with transformation and i actually for me i had the image of a tree so you can see here that tree kind of coming together up and out and this is another one i rotated throughout and what i love about this one especially is in each way i see something entirely different and new that can still connect me back to the prompt so in one position i see the tree in this position i sort of see two paths diverging so having that transformation having two paths um as it moves here i see this as another tree but i sort of see it as a masculine and a feminine so with this tree i see this as very masculine coming up and out and then with this tree i see it as being more feminine rooted grounding coming down into the earth that's just how i interpret this again everybody's totally different and then here i see a sunset which i love thinking about that transformation how the world is transformed every day as the sun arises brand new you may begin to notice for yourself that you have certain materials certain symbols or images and marks that you feel drawn to that you return to again and again it can change over time and so that's something as you create more and more mindful art or as you explore more art therapy exercises or expressive arts activities you might notice patterns themes or threads and again that's very different whether you're doing art therapy or mindful art so i hope that you enjoyed seeing all of those different art therapy exercises as well as some of the mindful art journaling prompts i hope that you feel inspired to perhaps play and create in whatever form that means for you with any of those questions or the prompts if anything sparked something in you to create i consider that a win so i would love love love to hear in the comments below which prompt or question you're excited to play around with first or which one you've already played with and if you have any others any other curiosities or questions or go-to prompts that you like to use to get started especially if you're feeling stuck with a blank page or a blank canvas i would absolutely love to hear that and have it shared in comments so we can support each other here in this community as i mentioned throughout the video i'm going to have links below in the description regarding different art materials i used as well as the pinterest board for mark making inspiration as well as some of my other courses if you're interested in diving deeper or having more support there's also going to be links to some of the other videos i mentioned so you can look at that process of drawing the breath or mindful mandalas or soul collage there's so much here and what i'm so excited about that i mentioned briefly in the middle of the video if you heard that is that i'm going to be starting a 30-day mindful art challenge here on the channel we're going to be starting that next week on september 24th so that really is where i'm going to be sharing videos daily for 30 days about different mindful art practices that i'll be doing in my journal and creating so i hope that it's a way one for accountability for myself it's leading up to my 40th birthday on october 24th so it'll be a celebration that 30th day and then two for us to create together for it to spark inspiration for you and your own creative practice i know that 30 days of creating consistently every day can be a challenge that's why it's a challenge and also for us to hold that really loosely and softly so you may pop in you might watch some of the videos you might watch them all you might create a couple of days you might create on all of the days everything is absolutely wonderful the way that it is and i hope that you find it supportive no matter when you find them whether it's during the challenge or if you see this video many years later i hope that it supports your creative practice um it's really my mission and intention to give people permission to create freely and without judgment and that so many of these practices can help us to de-stress relax be in the present moment and allow ourselves to express who we are and what we really want to express in the world so i look forward to sharing that challenge with you and connecting with you more during that time and if you're ready now to dive in you can move on to the next video ps definitely like this video if you like it that lets me know to make more like this and if you subscribe to the channel and hit that bell notification you will be notified when we release new videos especially for that upcoming 30 day art challenge okay now we'll move on to the next video

Channel: Mindful Creative Muse

Views: 13,037

Rating: 4.968504 out of 5

Keywords: art therapy exercises, art journaling for beginners, mindful art, art therapy, art journaling ideas, art therapy activities, mindful art activities, mindful mandalas, meditative watercolor doodling, meditative watercolor doodles, meditative art, 30 day art challenge, expressive arts, meditative art journaling, self art therapy session, self art therapy, art therapy prompts, art journaling

Id: 7cNgdr-pRgo

Length: 29min 53sec (1793 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020