Hello my friends, today I will show you how to draw your emotions by just using lines.
My name is Youhjung and I am an art therapist - and in this video I'll give you some
guidance on how to express your feelings through drawing without any skills needed
and even if you feel like you can't draw or you're not an artist. Expressing emotions is
very very important in our lives, especially for our mental health. But sometimes
rather than talking about how you feel, it can be easier to express that through non-verbal means.
The materials you need are oil pastels or any other drawing medium of your
choice and you need a drawing paper of any size.
The last thing you can have is index cards or
something similar - here I prepared some craft paper.
The prompt is divided into two parts: first, you're going to warm up by scribbling on the
paper. Imagine your hand was an animal or insect and imagine that it left marks wherever it went
on the paper. Vary your lines (or marks) dark to light, fast to slow, hard, soft,
skipped or continuous, zigzags to wavy lines... experiment and have fun on the paper.
And try to fill up the whole page if you
can.
Now switch to your index cards or craft paper.
Here I'm just going to cut mine so it's smaller.
Now the second prompt is to choose different emotions you'd like to explore
and express today. Tap into each emotion and choose a color to fit that emotion.
Imagine your animal or insect was feeling that emotion just like before and imagine
how would it behave and what kind of marks would it leave on that surface.
Make those marks on the paper.
(You can also try to keep your hand on the paper and not lift it up
but this is just a bonus/extra step).
By using just lines, it can give us so much more structure and control
and we often need this structure and control in the beginning when we're just starting
out with expressing ourselves creatively and exploring our emotions in a visual
way. By using just lines it makes it so much simpler and easier to get started and I really
recommend this if you have tried out my previous video exercise on "how to draw your feelings"
and you are stuck - this is the perfect easy activity that you can do before you try that out.
This is an optional prompt but if you like to try this
you can take this further by doing a larger piece on how you feel today. Feel into each
emotion and use lines only first. Then, continue working on that line by adding shapes textures
or anything else you want to add to develop the piece further. See where this takes you
You can include other feelings as well because oftentimes
we don't feel one emotion at a time but multiple emotions simultaneously.
This is a really good exercise to do every day or on a regular basis just to check in
with yourself and see how you're feeling throughout the week throughout the month.
Now once you are done, step away from your pieces and look at them side by side.
Look at how each line seem to communicate a different feeling or mood. Notice what your
response is to each - does one seem to feel more familiar? or do you like one over the other?
That is it for this exercise! I hope you enjoyed it and actually give it a try for yourself.
The materials are easy and really accessible and you don't have to dedicate too much time for this
activity. So hope you enjoyed this and if you want to take this further by having a regular
routine of making art every week I invite you to my online therapeutic art making group
that happens every Monday. You can join or see details with the link in my description box below.
Thanks so much for watching I'll catch you in the next one!
Bye!