finger painting

Even if you have never painted with your fingers, you can imagine the special tactile sensations that you experience when you dip your finger into gouache – dense but soft, stir the paint in a jar, pick up a certain amount, transfer it to paper and leave the first stroke. It’s a whole ritual!

The value of finger painting in terms of personality diagnostics is described by psychologist Asya I. Kaydis. The strengths of the method are:

= freedom from movement restrictions;
= freedom from cultural influence;
= freedom from social pressure;
= no problem of equivalent forms

All these features are significant for a successful art therapy process.

For the sake of achieving pictorial effects by applying paint directly with the palms and fingers of a child, developed fine motor coordination is not required. Movements can be sweeping, large, expressive, or vice versa, point, local, jerky. The thickness of the fingers in itself does not imply the creation of thin strokes, lines.

Drawing with fingers and palms is not affected by standard patterns. Children are not taught to draw like this either in kindergarten or at school. Therefore, this way of creating images projectively represents the individuality of the child.

Finger painting is a permitted mud game in which destructive impulses and actions are expressed in a socially accepted form. The child, imperceptibly for himself, may dare to do actions that he usually does not do, because he is afraid, does not want or does not consider it possible to break the rules.

In the same child, each process and product of finger painting is different from the previous ones. Every time it happens in a new way: a different color is chosen, the ratio of lines, tempo, rhythm, etc. Therefore, the result of manipulations with paint can be unpredictable: it is not known what image will turn out in the end.

Drawing with fingers is not indifferent to a child. Due to the non-standard situation, special tactile sensations, expression and atypical result of the image, it is accompanied by an emotional response, which can have a wide range from brightly negative to brightly positive. A new experience of emotional acceptance of oneself in the process of drawing, samples of behavior characteristics unusual for a child, expand and enrich the image of the Self.

Not all children, on their own initiative, switch to finger painting. Some, having become interested and having tried this method, return to the brush or sponge as more familiar means of image. Some kids find it hard to get started with finger painting. As a rule, these are children with rigid social attitudes of behavior, focused on early cognitive development, as well as those in whom parents see “little adults”, from whom mature behavior, restraint, and reasonableness of opinions are expected. It is for these children that “playing with mud” serves as a prevention and correction of anxiety, social fears, and depression.

#psychology #art therapy #art