Art Therapy Prompts (97 Counseling Drawings, PDF)

About this resource

What's inside this resource

Ninety-seven open-ended drawing prompts guide students through self-expression around emotions and personal experience -- for example, 'design a mask that represents your anxiety,' 'draw your stress monster, then draw yourself defeating it,' and 'draw a time when someone showed you kindness.' The prompts are supplied twice: once as a compact bulleted list across four pages, and again as a 100-page illustrated version with one prompt printed per page alongside a small drawing space, intended for a school counselor or social worker to hand a student individually. Several early pages of the full illustrated file are promotional rather than instructional -- a Terms of Use notice, an 'About Me' bio, and a 'Click Here to Shop'/email sign-up call-to-action -- before the actual prompts begin. The content is designed for one-on-one or small-group counseling use, so its appropriate age range depends more on a student's readiness for a given topic than on grade level. For a more structured alternative to these open-ended prompts, the coping skills SEL coloring pages pair four specific, named coping strategies with a page to color for each.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Express a specific emotion or personal experience through a drawing prompt rather than words.
Practice a coping visualization, such as 'draw your stress monster, then draw yourself defeating it.'
Reflect on personal history by drawing a 'past, present, and future' scene or a postcard of where they were vs. want to be.

Teaching tips

Use the compact bulleted list to quickly choose a prompt suited to a specific student's current concern, then print just that single illustrated page from the 100-page file rather than the whole set.
Skip past the first several pages of the full file (Terms of Use, bio, shop link) when printing directly for student use.
Pair heavier prompts (e.g., 'draw your trauma,' 'draw your biggest fear') with a follow-up conversation rather than assigning them as standalone independent work.

Skills covered

Emotional self-expression through drawing -- students respond to open-ended prompts (e.g., 'draw your biggest fear,' 'draw your safe place') using visual art rather than words.
Symbolic representation of feelings -- several prompts ask students to design a mask or monster representing a specific emotion such as anxiety, anger, or trauma.
Reflective narrative prompts -- some pages pair a drawing with a 'tell the story' or 'what happened next?' prompt, combining visual and verbal reflection.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

What comes before the first drawing prompt in the 100-page illustrated file?

A Terms of Use notice, an 'About Me' section from the counselor-author, and promotional material including a 'Click Here to Shop' link and an email sign-up for more resources -- none of which are drawing prompts themselves.

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Resource details

Concepts & topics

Core concepts

social emotional learning
art therapy
self-expression
counseling

Topics

art therapy drawing prompts social emotional learning art therapy drawing counseling worksheets art therapy worksheets counseling prompts sel

More to explore

Art Therapy Drawing Worksheets – 97 Prompts

What's inside this resource