Up: [[Expressive Art]] Related: [[Emotions]] Created: 2026-02-09 - If feeling depressed, draw gradations from dark to light with crayon or charcoal. - Paint how you are feeling. Then paint the opposite. - Name a feeling that has dominated your day. Close your eyes and see what sensations, colours, imagery, or words come to you in connection with that feeling. Choose a simple shape and draw it in the centre of your page. Continue by adding other shapes, lines, colours or words that had occurred to you. If you do these in concentric rings you will have made a mandala. - If you are feeling something you would rather not feel, such as embarrassed or angry, imagine it as a being. This moves it from the rational to the mythic world. You can find an image of a person or creature or you can make one. Either way, when you look at the image, you will have a more nuanced sense of how you feel. (Mark Dean, analyst and art therapist) - Make a list of emotions, then sketch a shape that connects to each emotion. Think about why you chose the shapes you did, but don’t push too hard at this. Don’t overthink. - [[Visual Journaling Check-in Process]] - [[Why I Love Soft Pastels]]. They’re a really spontaneous, colourful medium allowing me easy access to my emotions. - Make a circle that fills my page. Divide the circle in half horizontally. Write 5-10 things that are circular in the top half of the circle (i.e., clock, plate...) In the bottom half write an emotion word for each of the circle words. (Nora Swan-Foster) - Really quick circles are helpful. Circles contain raw emotions Take a symbol that is important, put it into the circle and develop it. Once done use [[active imagination]] to develop your relationship to it. (Nora Swan-Foster) - Use clay to make two pieces. One to represent [[anger]] you are feeling, maybe in the form of an object or an animal. Then a second piece to express what the anger is either afraid of or trying to protect. Look at similarities and differences between the two pieces. - Make a scribble to express anger. Does it move and change over time? What is it’s size? Its speed? Its intensity? Ask it what it wants you to know.