Mindfulness Art Activities: Watercolour for Wellness
When looking for ways to manage our anxiety during stressful or uncertain times, seeking solace in activities designed to quieten the mind and focus the attention on enjoying the moment, like art, are a fantastic way to explore mindfulness. With this in mind, we asked the wonderfully talented Kathryn Coyle to put together some simple yet beautiful ways that you can practise mindfulness at home, with a set of watercolour paints! These exercises are not designed to be difficult or overwhelming, and can be enjoyed by experienced and novice painters alike! Check out Kathryn’s ideas below, and dedicate an afternoon to having a go at one or two of them yourself.
Mindfulness Art Activities
You Will Need:
Illustrated Ideas:
In a sketch pad, start with watery balloon shapes, dropping in darker pigment and watching the colour flow. Gently add in some circular shapes using the whole of the brush to twist around. Then, when it is dry, ink in some leaf like tree shapes allowing your strokes to run freely across the paper. Finish the exercise with some satisfying splashes around the page!
Getting creative with freestyle splodges of watercolour paint is only limited by your imagination… explore multiple colourschemes and shapes, and then let your imagination decide what to turn them into.
You can use a black fineliner pen once the paint is dry to add the illustration of your choice. Of course, wetting your watercolour paper before you add paint will allow you to create an entirely different effect…
Here you can explore the combination of two or more colours to create a beautiful free-flowing background.
Bring your loaded paintbrush to the wet surface of the watercolour paper, and watch as the paint creates a design of its own.
Once this is dry, you can turn it into a beautiful piece of art using a black fineliner!
Mindful Doodling:
If you enjoyed our Meditation Rocks tutorial, then you’ll love the next idea…
This time, try painting with a darker colour, to create a page full of clearly defined bubbles. You will need to paint onto dry watercolour paper for this one.
Leave your shapes to dry, then use a white acrylic marker to add decorative detail to each shape.
This is such a relaxing activity to become immersed in. Each shape provides you with a space to freestyle doodle, and get creative; and at the end you’ll have a beautiful page of artwork.
Abstract Flowers:
In a sketch pad, use the point of the brush to paint some fluid green stems.
Then with a watery solution of the colours of your choice, build up abstract florals along the
stem, allowing the colours to mix and blend on the page.
This is a simple but stunning way to create an abstract floral design that even a beginner to waterclour can try their hand at, and enjoy.
Have you ever used watercolour paints before? Have we convinced you to give them a go? Let us know in the comments! And if you’d like to explore more creative art ideas, tutorials and projects, you’ll find them all right here!
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