Stronger Connections Wellness Mini-Session | Mindfulness & Creativity with Neurographic Art

Khamia Powell:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to our wellness mini-session. Today’s topic is Mindfulness and Creativity with Neurographic Art, and we’re really excited to have you with us today. Today’s session is brought to you by California Stronger Connections Technical Assistance Center, a program from California Department of Ed, and the center provides support to local educational agencies across the state for safe and healthy and supportive learning environments. One of the series we’ve been offering is our wellness mini sessions, and this is our first one for the school year, and at the end we’ll share more on how to join us for the rest. So today I am really excited. We have Katie Blunt and Dee Dee Buchanan with us. I’m really excited to welcome them for our wellness mini.

Katie Blunt is an art content specialist with Fresno County Superintendent of Schools where she delivers art education for students with special needs and facilitates socio-emotional learning-centered workshops for adults. She specializes in using the arts to support creative expression, wellness, and self-regulation. Dee Dee Buchanan is a social-emotional learning specialist with Fresno County Superintendent of Schools where she supports educators and students by integrating the arts into daily wellness practices. She specializes in helping learners connect with their resilience, creativity, and joy through artistic expression. Katie and Dee Dee, we’re excited to put marker to paper and try our hand in neurographic art. I’ll turn this session over to you all to get us started.

Dee Dee Buchanan:

Thank you. All right, so welcome to our session. We are going to get right in. In our short time together, we’re going to just do a quick rounding, make sure you have all the materials you need. I’ll tell you a little bit about what neurographic art is, and then Katie is going to walk us through the process of actually creating, and then I’ll wrap up by sharing some additional ideas that you can continue this practice in moving forward.

So really quickly, just make sure you have everything you need. So you’re going to want some sort of white paper. Printer paper is fine, but if you have card stock, that’s even better, a black marker or a Sharpie, and then any sort of coloring tools of your choice. So markers, colored pencils, crayons, watercolor, anything that you have at your fingertips. So I’ll give you a second to do that. And then at the same time, if you could just remove any distractions. So put your phone away, close the door, anything that will give you this luxury of time to really engage in the process. And last but not least, just take a couple of deep breaths to center yourself, breathing in deeply through your nose. Hold at the top and slowly and fully exhale. Maybe one more breath just like that. Breathe in through your nose. Hold at the top for a second and slowly and fully exhale.

So what is neurographic art? Neurographic art is a mindfulness practice created by a Russian psychologist. There’s a formal technique used in art therapy, but what we’re doing here today is simply a creative mindfulness practice where no prior art experience is needed. We’re just going to reap the benefits of being creative. Although many of us don’t think of ourselves as creative, humans aren’t innately creative and practicing creativity in any capacity is beneficial for our wellness. Today, you’ll engage in an activity that can be replicated with variations time and time again.

So the name comes from neuro, referring to the brain, the nervous system and the billions of neurons and synaptic connections that carry messages throughout the body. Your art piece will end up looking a bit like an image of these neurons. And then graphic refers to the use of lines, images, symbols, or markings to create a visual representation. The process is really simple, but can be highly intentional. So from a wellness perspective, it works in three different ways. It induces an active flow state. The repetitive focused task of smoothing out the lines and coloring the spaces serves as a form of active meditation, and it can help the racing mind quiet and calm the nervous system. It also encourages cognitive reframing. So the act of transforming sharp, harsh intersections into smooth connected pathways helps the brain subconsciously reframe inner conflicts, turning obstacles into solutions. And finally, it can remove performance anxiety because the process relies entirely on abstract doodling. It requires absolutely no artistic talent, and this lack of pressure makes it highly accessible and a comforting tool for self-regulation.

So with that, as long as everybody has their white paper, a black Sharpie or marker and some coloring tools, I’m going to pass it over to Katie to get us started.

Katie Blunt:

Okay, everybody, let’s go. Let’s create together. While I am beginning to share my screen, I’d like to invite you to, as Dee Dee was talking about mindfulness, I’d like to invite you to, if you would like … Everyone, is that screen visible to you if I wave my little hand at you? Okay, I’m seeing thumbs up. Wonderful. I’d like to invite you to, if you would like, set an intention for this mindfulness practice. Perhaps you would like to send some love out to somebody, maybe you would like to solve a little problem in your mind, send some love out to yourself. You don’t have to set an intention, but sometimes taking your mind off other things, you can actually, working through this art process, have that intention come true as you work.

Now, you’ll notice that I put a large white paper down on my table. This is because I’m using a Sharpie and I don’t want to get Sharpie on my table. So if you’d like to do that, go right ahead. Now I’m getting my other white paper ready, but before I do that, I want to show you where we’re headed. This is an example piece that I created just yesterday. This one was done with watercolor and Sharpie, so just an idea of where we’re headed. All right, so everybody, please take your white paper that you have with you. I have watercolor paper, but any white paper will do, and we’re going to grab our Sharpies or our black markers, whatever you have. Doesn’t even have to be a black marker. If you have colored pencils, any dark color will do. And what you’re going to do is, without thinking about it too much, you’re going to start on one side of the paper and just start drawing loopy, curvy lines. You may want to make sure that they cross over one another, and look at me, not thinking, and then they go off the paper.

One other interesting thing you can do is just freehand. Draw a couple of circles on top of the lines that you did. You don’t have to do this, but if you want to, you can. I like to, so I’m going to do it. All righty. Now, I have my not thinking line. Even just that was actually really soothing to draw that curvy loopy line all over my paper. The next thing that I’m going to do, as Dee Dee was talking about, is I’m going to soften my corners. And before I show you how to do that, I want to mention that I’m not going to be able to show you how to finish this whole project just because of time restraints or constraints, but what I am going to do is show you the process for each part and then invite you to finish it on your own when we’re done here.

So to sharpen the corners, you’re going to find every little place on your paper where you have a pointy bit, and you’re going to draw a curvy little line there, and then I like to continue that line up the lines next to it so that it kind of smooths it out. Then we color it in. Then there’s another pointy little area. I don’t know if those have a real name, but that’s what I call them. So I’m going around to all of the places in this curvy line that I have drawn or set of curvy lines, and I’m smoothing out the sharp edges. Now, I’m doing this literally, but as you work through it, you may find that it’s actually figuratively happening in your mind as well. This can be a very soothing meditative practice.

It also sometimes for some people isn’t. I was talking to Dee Dee about this the other day, and she has found occasionally when she is working with people on this, that sometimes this part is a little too tedious and frustrating for folks. If you don’t find this soothing and nice, don’t do it, right? I like it. I like curving out those, or adding curves to those harsh points, so I do this. If this is not a soothing exercise for you, I say skip it. One thing you can do … Oh, yeah, I’m enjoying that. See, and then I notice that this part is a little jaggedy right here, so I’m going to take my Sharpie and just thicken up that line to make it look smoother. All right, so I’ll do a couple more. I make a curved line around the point and then I fill it in and then I go back and kind of smooth it out.

Now, you’ll notice my lines look kind of wobbly. I like it like that. I don’t mind. It kind of actually, as Dee Dee talked about, gives me that actual look of a neuron. I think it looks cool. If this is not your deal, you can spend a lot more time smoothing out those lines and having them look less wobbly. Again, this is your piece of art and it’s also your peace, P-E-A-C-E. So whatever is soothing and delightful to your brain and causes that nice little fizz as you’re working, that’s what I want you to do.

Okay, couple more. Watching the time. All right. Now, I do not have time, as I said before, to finish the whole thing. Let me just do this one right here. Curving. I hope you guys are working along with me as I’m chattering away. Okay, so I have enough here that I can show you the next part. Oh, hold on. I need to fix that. There we go. Okay, now it’s time to add color. You’re going to want to choose somewhere between three to … Well, I like to do at least four colors, but you can pick as few or as many as you like. I also like to actually think about the colors that I’m choosing. So here I have a bunch of markers. Maybe you have colored pencils or water colors. Spend a little time, just sort of gaze at them, thinking about what color palette is lighting up your heart or your mind right now.

So I’m going to pick a few. You want to do at least four so that the colors cooperate. Yeah, I like those. So I’m going to choose these markers and then let’s just spend some time together. If you have, sorry, curved off some pointy edges, let’s spend some time together filling those in with color. And I’m going to stop talking.

Well, I am going to talk a little bit. Watercolors work great for this, so do markers, so do colored pencils. A fun thing to do if you’re a little bit more of an advanced person is to kind of shade the edges. I don’t know if that’s showing. It is. I have these brush markers here, which are really nice because they act like paint a little bit, like a watercolor without having to deal with water. I can create that effect of paint, but not get my entire set of water colors out. So let’s spend some time filling color in together, or if you would like to still be back on the rounding of your pointy edges, you can go right ahead and do that.

I would like everybody to check and make sure that you’re breathing. I just caught myself not breathing, which not helpful. So let’s just all take a nice deep belly breath together.

Another nice thing to do while you’re working on this kind of art is to have music playing in the background, if that is enjoyable to you. That looks like a butterfly wing. I have a couple … No, I just have one more area that I can fill in on mine. I invite everyone else to keep working as I chat because I’m going to show you … I don’t like that. I want to fix it. I’m going to show you a couple more things before I wrap up this section. So what you will do when we have to leave you is you are going to go back through and continue rounding off all these corners. Maybe you have some extra time in your day. You can turn some music on, maybe find a lovely little soothing cup of tea or beverage for yourself, get comfy somewhere, and just really turn this into a full mindfulness practice, or even if you’re at work, set this aside and use it as a quick little break throughout your day. Right? So you’re going to keep doing the rounding if that’s what was enjoyable to you until it’s all done, and then you’re going to go back and fill your colors in.

You will eventually get to the point where you have … Whoop. Let me do a little switcheroo here. This situation. Now, this was done with watercolors, and you can see my paint kind of went everywhere. If that is fine with you, great. If you are using watercolors and your paint dries and you don’t love the way that looks, you can always go back afterward. I like to do this because I love these sharp black lines. You can always go back afterward and sharpen them up. So I invite you to do that when your entire project is finished. Okay. See how that sort of really makes the line look more bold? Yes, that makes my brain very happy. Oh, now I want to do more. Okay.

And finally, as Dee Dee mentioned before, this is a really wonderful process because each one that you create, depending on what your curvy line did that day or what colors you used or frankly what kind of mood you were in, each one turns out differently. You can do them in a sketchbook, you can do really, really big ones or teeny, teeny, tiny ones, and then you end up with this collection of this beautiful art that shows your mood on a daily basis. So I hope that you are able to enjoy this as much as we are, and I hope that for some of you, it serves you in your mindfulness practice.

So I’m going to stop my share and turn it back over to Ms. Dee Dee.

Dee Dee Buchanan:

All right. Thank you. Yes. So hopefully you’ll keep this nearby because it definitely was not enough time to finish, but you can always add to it. I just wanted to show you a couple of additional variations. So that one on the top left is the sort of traditional original one that we did where there’s no actual shapes and you soften all of the intersecting lines or points. The one on the top left is sort of … Oh, I’ve just blanked on the word. Basically itty bitty doodles. Katie, help me. What’s the name of the-

Katie Blunt:

Zentangles.

Dee Dee Buchanan:

Zentangles. Thank you. Yes, basically Zentangles within the shapes, with or without color. And then the bottom left is when you add … you can trace shapes, objects, to have shapes on top of. And the one on the bottom right is, instead of just free-flowing your original doodle line, you can take pennies or a little stone or something that will lay flat and you push it with the pen to create your original line. So those are some options. And these are just some examples of what they can look like in varying complexities. They’re also pretty. And then last but not least, if you would like a copy or to reference the slide deck for any reason, it’s there as a QR code. So …

Khamia Powell:

Great. Thank you. Thank you so, so much, Katie and Dee Dee. That was really fun and a really powerful way to calm our systems and exercise our innate creativity. Thanks so much for walking us through that. We hope everyone who participated enjoyed a moment of calm and peace you can carry with you for the afternoon. There’s the slide deck there. We also have a really, really short poll for you. We appreciate you doing that before you leave us today. Your feedback is really valuable and will help us shape the future session. So I just want to share that you can learn more about the offerings from Stronger Connections Technical Assistance Center, including our monthly mini wellness sessions and webinars. They’re on our Stronger Connections site. And we hope to see you again next month. And again, Katie, Dee Dee, thank you so much for collaborating with us today, and we hope everyone goes out and has a wonderful afternoon.