Scratch Paper with Abstract Anything

Purpose and goals:

To provide an accessible, low-effort and high-reward creative experience for clients, especially those with limited mobility or pain. Rainbow scratch paper allows clients to create vivid imagery with minimal pressure or fine-motor precision. This directive fosters creative expression, emotional processing, and gentle movement while offering opportunities for collaboration between client and art therapist.

• Support creative expression

• Facilitate emotional exploration

• Distract and reduce pain

• Enhance sense of agency

• Encourage gentle motor movement

Theoretical Rationale:

• Art expression when words are limited

• Sensorimotor Art Therapy supports grounding and sensory feedback

• Emotional Flexibility - abstract imagery can hold both comforting and challenging emotions, allowing clients to explore multiple layers of their experience.

• Meaning-Making: exploring what the client “sees” in abstract forms opens space for symbolic understanding of their inner world

Art-Making

Setup & Orientation

  • Use lap desk or table, depending on mobility and environment

  • Can tape scratch paper to maximize ease or paper moving

  • Offer a wooden skewer or stylus that requires almost no pressure

Initial Invitation

Use encouraging, permissive language:

“You can go ahead and scratch anything at all. Just make a mark on the page—lines, scribbles, shapes. It doesn’t have to look like anything. There’s absolutely no right or wrong way to do this.”

Normalize tremors or limited mobility:

“Your hand might shake or move unexpectedly, and that’s completely okay. Those movements can become part of the artwork.”

Art-Making Phase

  • Allow the client to make marks freely—spontaneous lines, spirals, textures.

  • Offer gentle reassurance if they hesitate.

  • Provide breaks as needed to accommodate fatigue or pain.

Art Therapy as the “Third Hand” (Kramer): The therapist may assist by stabilizing materials, making marks alongside the client, or adding elements when invited—supporting independence while honoring client choice.

Reflection Questions:

  • Observe your art, look at it from different angles–when you look at the artwork, what stands out?

  • What was it like to make marks on the page today?

  • Did anything in the image reflect how you’re feeling?

  • What might the lines or colors represent for you?

  • Think of this art as a symbol or message, what might it be saying?

*Opportunity for collaboration: letting them lead with subject matter, themes, and can be abstracted (ground lines, clouds)

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