Draw it in your own style
Colour! What a deep and mysterious language, the language of dreams. ―Paul Gaugin
👥 Serves: 1 person, 11-25 people, 2-10 people
🎚 Difficulty: Easy
⏳ Total time: 11-30 minutes
🥣 Ingredients: 1 sheet of paper (per participant), 1 newspaper or magazine, a few sketch pens and crayons, 1 pair of scissors, 1 glue stick, 1 adult facilitator (for younger children)
🤓 Wholebeing Domains: Awareness, Liberatory Learning
💪 Wholebeing Skills: Creativity, Curiosity, Mindfulness, Non-judgement, Perspective, Reflection, Self-directed learning
Draw it in your own style
📝 Description
A creative activity to practise mindfulness through drawing and colouring.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many children and young people indoors, preventing them from playing outside. This is causing many physical and emotional issues, so it is important to find alternative solutions to help them continue to play at home, be fit, and cope with the emotional burden brought on by the pandemic.
The following recipe has been adapted from “The Home Activity Kit” to help children and young people engage in everyday life, kindly shared with us by Dream a Dream. This activity has been developed considering the pandemic situation so it can be conducted safely from home and is most suitable for young people between the ages of 8 and 14. We recommend having an adult to facilitate it but teenagers can experience it without adult supervision.
Check out more wellbeing recipes for children and young people adapted from Dream a Dream’s kits: Balance the ball, Colourful confusions, Portraiture, Solo balloon volleyball, and Tree talk.
👣 Steps
Step 1 – Warm-up (5’)
Sit in a comfortable position and close your eyes. Take three long breaths, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Now shift your focus to the space between your two eyebrows. Slowly say these words “love, peace, and kindness” 20 times. When you are done, gently open your eyes again.
Step 2 – Choose an image (5’)
Grab the newspaper or magazine and choose an image that appeals to you today. It could be anything: a person, a landscape, an animal, an object… Please choose an image that is slightly bit in size.
Step 3 – Cut and paste (5’)
Cut out the image from the newspaper or magazine. Then mark a line across the image and cut the picture in two halves. You can opt for a straight line, or even a wavy or zig-zag line! Now paste either half of the image on a blank sheet of paper.
Step 4 – Draw and colour (15’)
Now draw the other half of the image in your style using a pencil. Then colour the image you drew with your favourite colours; you don’t need to use the same colours as the ones in the original image.
Step 5 – Reflect (5’)
Look at the art you just made. How did you feel when you were drawing the other half? If you had to draw your other half, how would you draw it? Would you want to change anything about your other half?