In Mindfulness-Based Art: The SPARKS Guide for Educators and Counselors, art therapist and visual artist, Margaret Jones Callahan offers step-by-step instructions to bring Mindfulness into your art studio, your counselling office, or a classroom. Here, you can discover the techniques and basic principles of Mindfulness, find lesson plans for 7 art projects, guidelines for creating a safe class culture and scripts for teaching Mindfulness. Through drawing, painting, expressive calligraphy, clay sculpture, photography, and more learn to be in the present moment, quiet the inner critics, and express yourself authentically.
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​Whether you’re a student-artist. a teacher, an art therapist, coach, or counselor, or simply wanting to explore mindful art and spiritual expression, SPARKS shows you how student-artists of any age can increase their confidence and learn to trust their expressive minds.

“It’s interesting to do my art this way. I feel real and I like what I’ve done.” — Grade 11 student Expresssive Art project

“The mindfulness really makes me slow down and be really thorough with how I see.” — Grade 10 student mindful drawing

“These are my dark thoughts. I can see them here. I’m going to cover this part and do something new over here.” — Grade 12 Student Luggage project

“The art room is the only place in the school where I really relax. I can be myself here and say what I want to say.” — Grade 12 photography student

​“She shows us how to do it and then helps us do it our way. I don’t get in trouble for not doing it her way.” — Grade 8 student coping with learning challenges speaking about her art teacher

Reviews For Mindfulness Based Art: The SPARKS Guide for Educators and Counselors

​From the British Columbia Art Therapy newsletter:  a book review from art therapist, Eiko Uehara

A Book Review: Mindfulness-Based Art: The SPARKS Guide for Educators and Counselors

This book has eight chapters and unlike similar books in the expressive arts therapy field, it starts with theories of mindfulness and moves on to practical approaches that utilize visual arts. Chapters include drawing, painting, clay, photography, theme painting, and collage with real leaves.

The author offers a mindfulness awareness practice in three Rs: Rest, Recognize, and Return. This procedure is a basic practice step towards becoming Mindful and is introduced as a preparation for the beginning of Mindfulness-Based Art. 

What seems familiar in resting, breathing, and recognizing one's own thoughts, and returning to the rhythmic repetition, is highly valuable in the process of becoming mindful when it is done consciously.

As a Japanese raised in Tokyo, I identify calligraphy as writing with black ink and a fat bamboo brush in the traditional/old fashioned way. It was not an art form to me. However, in Chapter 3, the author takes in this approach as a procedure of “the expression of one’s inner self through brush writing… the inner moment, or the expression of self, communicated outwardly – visually speaking our heart-felt truth”. I understand that what I used to do while growing up could become a meaningful method. 
 
The author, Margaret Jones Callahan has written an extraordinary book for classroom teachers and counsellors, as well as visual artists who are willing to try a new procedure of mindfulness to learn about and to further develop their approach to creating art.
 
Eiko Uehara: M.A., R.C.C., BCATR

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