Abstract Print & Flow: How Art Helps Our Health

I love this surprisingly beneficial art activity. If you’d like to learn how it can help your brain, and learn how to do it, let’s get started.

Welcome to BETTER WITH ART

I’m Melinda and I’m here to encourage you to reclaim your creativity and practice creative self-care with weekly small art prompts. Up until now, they could always be done in an art journal or on paper if you didn’t have one. And for this first video of BETTER WITH ART on its new home, we’re starting with that type of project.

Click here to find out more about art journals I’ve been trying out since the one I always recommended is no longer available. If you’re interested in an art journal that works well for my simple form of art journaling, heavyweight paper is important. As is smoothness. My favorite was a a mixed media journal with 140lb/300gsm hot press paper.

As well as sticking with the traditional format of Better with Art videos, I’m returning to a project I loved from the 52-Week Art Journal Journey, which was also one of my most popular, if not the most popular video from that series.

Supplies

To start your art in your art journal or on your paper, you’ll need a piece of scrap paper, no larger than your journal page or paper. It can be anything, junk mail. It doesn’t matter. As long as you can put a layer of paint on it.

I am using my inexpensive Craft Smart craft acrylic. Because it doesn’t need to be expensive to reclaim your creativity.

You can check out my paint on Amazon here. If you click on any of my Amazon links and make a qualifying purchase, I will make a small commission as an Amazon Associate. This does not affect your price but allows you to support my art-sharing with your purchase. So thanks if you do!

I also have a paintbrush to use with the paint, a pen for later, and a piece of mail destined for recycling to protect my work surface.

Get Started with Our Abstract Print

The first step is to crumple up your paper and smooth it out, but not too smoothly.

Dribble and splatter paint around your scrap paper, and spread it with your brush. Another option is to just crumple up your paper and squish the paint together.

You want a good layer of paint.. It doesn’t have to be even but you want to get it spread around well.

Crumple your paper again. Then loosely open it up, and apply it to your page or paper, patting it down but again not too smoothly.

Before I ever touched a gel plate, this was an interesting form of monoprint I did, as mentioned, in the 52-Week Art Journal Journey.
It’s not quite the same as a gel plate, but a silicone mat can also be used for that type of monoprinting, and I have a couple videos about that you can check out here and here.

So what we do next is let this dry. You can use a hair dryer or a heat tool to speed things along, or, as I’m going to do, you can go about doing other things.

It’s important to me to design projects for Better with Art that don’t require a lot of time, or easily enable you to work on it for a few minutes you may have today and come back to it and work on it another day.

I’m going to go grab some breakfast. After I rinse out my brush.

Find Flow in Tracing

After our fun print is dry, it’s time for your pen; I have a rather fine one. Pick a spot and start tracing.

Use the interesting shapes you created with your paint to create unique lines like fantastical geography.

This is a project that there is totally no way to get it wrong.

This also is a good project to get into the flow state I talk about so much, where all of the noise just quiets, the distractions from outside and those spinning thoughts, because of the focused yet low stakes nature of tracing.

In the video I tried to keep my hand where it wouldn’t block what I was drawing as I was drawing it. I find the act of this type of tracing interesting to watch, as well as engage in.

Options if You Don’t Have Paint or It’s a Sensory Thing

An option if you don’t have paint, is to scatter some rice or unpopped popcorn on your paper or page and trace that.

That’s also a method some people use in creative writing, when they write fantasy in particular, to create the geography of their fictional land.

You could also lay down yarn or string randomly on your paper to trace. It won’t be quite as intricate, but you could also do it repeatedly and create even more fascinating intricate line work.

These are also good options if you don’t want to get your hands dirty or have a sensory issue with that.

How It’s Good for You

Providing yourself opportunities to enter into the artistic flow state and allowing yourself to do so is good for your mental and emotional health, with its calming effects, reducing stress.

According to the American Psychological Association, mindfulness-based activities help lower cortisol (the unhelpful hormone associated with a response to stress) levels, promoting relaxation and mental clarity.

The repetitive motion of tracing, especially when focusing on each movement, encourages mindfulness. Mindfulness is when we are fully engaged in the moment.

Studies show it’s also good for your brain in other ways. By engaging in flow activities, you can improve your problem solving skills. In its deep focus, creative insights can emerge naturally.

The artistic or creative flow state is one of the ways art making boosts overall well-being. Engaging in precise creative activities like tracing, stimulates neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new connections. This can enhance memory, particularly procedural memory, which is responsible for learning new skills and habits.

Interacting with your abstract shape requires your brain to interpret, differentiate, and follow fine details, which improves visual discrimination skills and spatial reasoning. These skills are crucial for tasks requiring depth perception, reading comprehension, and even navigation.

Tracing engages both hemispheres of the brain. It activates the left hemisphere, which controls precision and sequencing; and the right hemisphere, which processes spatial awareness and creativity. This cross-hemispheric activity can enhance problem solving skills and cognitive flexibility.

It also enhances fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. The act of tracing intricate shapes, refines fine motor control and dexterity. Strengthening neural pathways associated with coordination. This can be particularly beneficial for individuals recovering from neurological conditions, or simply maintaining cognitive sharpness over time.

Art therapy has been shown to be quite beneficial in recovery from traumatic brain injuries. And its great exercise for aging brains.

It’s Not Just Good for Your Mood

As I always say, taking time to make art is not a waste of time.

I often focus on the mental and emotional benefits of regular art-making, but it’s so much more.

After I had traced all the way around the exterior of my interesting printed shape, I continued to trace spaces within. And then add more lines.

I love this art activity. And, as it turns out, it’s not just my subjective enjoyment. It’s really good for me.

So take some time to make an interesting shape, either a print with a crumpled piece of paper, or tracing rice or popcorn or yarn or string.

Or if you decide to just doodle, just doodle. I say just doodle, but it’s not just doodling. And here’s a video on the benefits of that in the original Better with Art.

Let me know in the comments how you feel about this, what may be new for you, perspective on simple art-making.

Help Me Remind More People Taking Time to Make Art is Not a Waste of Time

When you hope over to watch the video, be sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet. Like, and feel free to share. It’s going to take some work to build up the new channel so I can reach as many people as possible with the message that taking time to make art is not a waste of time and encourage them to reclaim their creativity and practice creative self-care with art making.

It is so good for us.

And I also don’t want you to miss any of my upcoming content.

Why I Started the New YouTube Channel

While I am kind of disappointed that this video won’t reach as many people as quickly as putting it on my old channel, I really felt it was time to separate things. I wanted to separate the creative self-care aspect of what I do from the business of what I do. I wanted to separate the more expensive art-making, that I also share to encourage people to make, from this celebration of how we can be creative with minimal, less expensive resources.

You don’t need to spend a lot of money to reclaim your creativity. And you don’t need a lot of time to practice creative self-care.

And that’s what I’m celebrating with the new Better with Art channel. So how you can help me reach more people: like, comment, share with others who need to be reminded and encouraged, subscribe, and enjoy the benefit of watching the videos.

I’ll be back next week with another creative self-care, small-art prompt.

In the meantime, enjoy some simple but great-for-your-brain art-making.

If having a simple art prompt with a simple journaling prompt sounds like what you need, where you are, on Thursdays, I’m bringing back the 52-Week Art Journal Journey, so be sure to check that out.