- Identify healthy coping skills
- Practice mindful creativity, by fully engaging in a de-stressing activity
- Use art as a release and a way of self-expression
- Experience a sense of community and accomplishment by creating a collective piece of art
Prior to the club meeting,
- Student leaders and/or club sponsor should prepare the supplies for splatter painting.
- Find a space large enough to lay down the tarp, or push together tables and cover the tables with the tarp. Set 5 stations on top of the tarp.
- At each station, place one canvas board, at least one paintbrush for each color of paint, 2-3 aprons or old t-shirts, and a roll of painters tape.
- Pour a bottle of paint into a cup and add a teaspoon of water. Repeat until there is at least 5 cups of each paint color.
- Distribute the paint cups (1 per each color) to each of the stations.
Day of the club meeting,
- Set a timer for 2 minutes and have students identify single-word coping skills, such as “bake”, “read”, “YouTube”, “talk”, “dance” etc. Record the ideas on a poster or whiteboard.
- After the 2 minutes, choose 5 words as a group.
- Divide the club members into the five stations. Have each station choose one of the 5 coping skill words. Using the painters’ tape, “write” the word somewhere on the canvas. In the end, each canvas should have one of the 5 coping skill words “written” with painters tape.
- Have group members wear an apron or old t-shirt, if they choose.
- Each group will splatter paint their canvas. To splatter paint, “load an ample amount of paint on the brush and simply use the wrist to flick the brush toward the canvas. This will create harsh, concentrated splatters rather than the spread out, looser splatters made using the entire arm to splatter paint.” (https://www.wikihow.com/Splatter-Paint).
After club meeting,
- Once the paint dries, remove the painters’ tape to reveal the coping words. As a club, decide how and where to display your collective art piece.
- So much of school is about being graded on a product, like a homework assignment or project. Creating a collective art piece was more about the process. What was your experience like? What was it like to focus on the process and not the product?
- Were you able to be mindful and stay in the present moment? Is this a transferable coping skill?
- Is there any other part(s) of the experience, either in being creative, building something collectively, releasing frustration through splatter painting, or simply supporting one another with a common task and experience, that you could repeat to help you manage a stressful time?