Circle Painting - A Case for Collaboration

An open-ended, simple painting activity for children and adults - Collaborative Circle Painting!

Do you know anything about “circle painting”? Whether your answer is yes or no I encourage you to watch Hiep Nguyen talk about his program here. Recently I successfully facilitated a collaborative circle painting activity for middle school students and for a group of adults as part of the 2019 Mindfulness Conference at Rocky Hill School.

I set up four table long lengths of brown kraft paper or bulletin board paper. Each participant gets 2 paintbrushes and 2 cups of tempera paint. This can be free form where participants float from paper to paper, adding on circles, painting designs inside the circles, and painting around the circles. This can also be done guided (see my downloadable pdf for details). Or begin guided and then just let the painting activity evolve organically. The key to making it all come more together and look a little more finished is to switch to black tempera and thin brushes at the end, adding in more details and contrast.

Collaborative art activities are fantastic for team building, developing confidence and trust, strengthening editing and observation skills, and encouraging creativity, innovative thought and complex problem solving.

For details download the pdf and don’t forget to tag #inspiredbyHCA when you try it out!