Art Therapy by Vincent Hart

Notes on art therapY bY VINCENT HART

1. The world around you:

Take one photo at the same time every day of the sky from a chosen window in your home- make sure there is nothing but the sky visible in your photographs. You can separate your photographs into weeks or months and observe the weather and seasons as they change around you.

2. Blind drawing:

Set out a pen and paper on a desk or pad in front of you, close your eyes and take 30 seconds to draw a self-portrait from memory. Repeat daily or as often as you like and see your skills and familiarity with yourself improve.

3. Short stories:

Keep a log of your dreams as soon as you wake up, write about them in greater detail and produce illustrations for a series of short stories.

4. Model making:

Take a piece of card, cardboard or paper, take the first letters from your each or all of your names and build them, however you like and in any font, in 3 dimensions.

5. Home

From memory, as accurately as you can, draw a cupboard, room or even your whole house. (for fun draw your own dream house).

6. Observational drawing:

Take an A4 sheet of paper, cut out a window in the centre (it can be any size, or format although 4:3 often works well) and draw a box the same size on a sheet of paper. Use the card as a viewfinder to select compositions around your home and produce a drawing in the box on your sheet of paper.

7. ‘Watching’:

Whilst watching a film or TV show produce 5 minute long sketches of your favourite scenes.

8. Interactions of colour:

Take an old magazine, some scissors (or a scalpel) and cut out blocks of your favourite colours. Using the viewfinder from the observational drawing exercise before and arrange the strips of colour to create abstract collages and compositions.

9. Visit a gallery:

Most of the world’s largest and most famous art institutions, as well as many private galleries, have created online versions of their exhibitions which are free for all to view.