The Art and Wellbeing Programme is a 6-week programme to help you express and understand yourself and experiences through both talking and creative activities. You don’t need to have had any previous art experience or be good at art to benefit from it.

Within the Art and Wellbeing sessions you are encouraged to use creative techniques such as drawing, painting, collage, colouring, weaving or 3D materials to produce artwork helping you express yourself artistically. This will give you a starting point to discuss your feelings and emotions, if you feel comfortable to do so, in a small group. This may help you explore how your creative process is linked to your feelings and perceptions, giving you a greater understanding of yourself to enable you to make positive changes in your life.

Who can attend:

The Art and Wellbeing programme is for pupils who would like to explore confused or difficult thoughts and feelings, build on their positive feelings and confidence and enjoy the control and expressive qualities of making art.

Session 1: Introduction – Scribbling with your eyes closed

• Introduce pupils to each other and discuss the consideration of feelings when pupils may discuss sensitive issues within the group.
• Pupils to complete the task of scribbling with your eyes closed and then develop these scribbles into objects using pencil crayons.
• Discuss the outcomes within the group if feeling confident to do so.

Session 2: Collage

• Discuss within the group what makes us unique and how we can feel different from other people.
• Pupils to create a collage using magazines, newspaper and coloured paper all about themselves and their identity.
• Discuss within the group how the outcome shows who they are.

Session 3: Paperchain of emotions

• Pupils to discuss emotions and feelings that they have experienced and try to link a colour to these. Each strip of colour can be worked on with words or images from a certain experience. When all of these experiences are coved they can be linked to make a chain.

Each experience can be shared with the group if pupils are confident to do so with the group listening and making a positive input.

Session 4: Weaving

• Recap on colour and emotion leading from paper chain emotions.
• Pupils to create a small weave using colours that best relate to how they feel.
• Discuss within the group why they feel this way and how the colours link to their emotions.

Session 5: Worry dolls

• Discuss within the group what makes pupils worry and how we can off load any worries to feel better and more in control of the situation.
• Pupils to create worry dolls thinking about colours and style.

Session 6: Message on a postcard

• Pupils to think about what they would like to say to someone if they had the confidence to do so in person.
• The postcard can then we written or drawn on with the message they would like to put across.

Each person can share with the group their message if they feel confident to do so.