My client

For my art therapy internship class, my assignment was to “do art with another person.” I chose to do art with a young child, Grant. Grant is five years old, has a great imagination, and is very sociable.

The experiential

For the experiential I did with Grant, my idea was to have him and I paint cut outs of animals and use our imaginations to create a story for them. We did eventually paint the animals, but Grant was more intrigued with washable paint. He put the paints on the paper plate, and because of how thin and fluid the paints were, they ran together into a swirl in the center of the plate. Grant was amazed by how the colors didn’t mix together and kept their original properties; he associated this blend as ‘tie-dye.’ Instantly Grant put his fingers in the mix to swirl around the colors more, being fascinated with results of every move. Needless to say, his interest in the original experiential was lacking. It was a lot of fun observing his actions and interacting with him.

altering the experiential

In art therapy, you always have to be ready and willing to alter your experiential to your client’s needs, and in Grant’s case, this was no different. I noticed his enjoyment when swirling the colors; to implement his idea and to not let the paint go to waste, we made ‘tie-dye animals.’ We picked up the animals together and placed them upside down onto the paint; when we picked them up they were covered in ‘tie dye’ paint. Then we made handprints of his tie-dye hands and cut them out to become animals as well. Finally to bring the project to a close, we played with the animal cutouts by placing them on a jungle themed rug and creating a story for them in our creative, 2-D word. We both had a great time.

Feel free to write about any experience you had with creating objects to put into a story.