Prayerful and Fun Fingerpainting

Creative activities lower our stress hormones, blood pressure, and heart rate. Even the simplest creative activities like coloring a children’s coloring book, doodling, and playing with modeling clay are effective in calming racing thoughts, grounding us in the present moment, and distracting us from painful memories. Painting with acrylic paints on canvas panels is my favorite artistic activity. And painting with my fingers was my most effective self-soothing and grounding skill. Using my fingers instead of a paintbrush added a tactile experience and increased my engagement with the creative process. Give it a try… the benefits are worth the mess!

P.S. This is a great tool for helping children to manage their stress and intense emotions.

A quick warm up is using a small canvas; this example is a 4x4 stretched canvas. I like to spread white paint on the canvas first and then use different finger movements to blend in a color or two. To create the effect of flower petals, I gently tapped dark pink paint into the thick coat of white.

Finger painting on mixed media or other thick paper is a terrific stress relieving experience. The paper causes resistance to the movement of the paint which means you must work harder and focus more. This was one of my go-to healing through creativity activities during my divorce and years suffering from PTSD. Painting spirals this way is particularly soothing.

This example is metallic colors of acrylic paint swirled with basic white acrylic on thick black paper.

Canvas panels are an inexpensive base for experimenting with finger painting. This time I chose a color palette that was cheery and bright and simply played with different motions. It is a soothing tactile experience to gently combine color into the white coating. The choice of colors can express your current mood or be a practice of “acting opposite” by choosing a palette that lifts you from your current mood.