Some days feel light and full of golden warmth. Others feel murky, tangled, or slow. What if you could take those feelings and give them colour — no rules, no technique, just an honest splash of your mood onto paper? That’s what a mood painting is all about. It’s not about painting something, but painting how you are.
Why it works: Colour as emotion
Colour and emotion are intimately connected. In fact, research from the University of Manchester (Wilms & Oberfeld, 2018) found that humans instinctively link colours to feelings — blue is calm, yellow is happy, red is energy or anger. These connections are cross-cultural and deeply wired into our psychology.
When you reach for a colour that matches your internal state, you’re actually helping your brain to process that emotion. Psychologist Dr. Cathy Malchiodi, a pioneer in art therapy, explains that “colour choice can act as a mirror for our emotional world — allowing us to recognise and regulate what’s within.”
So by expressing your emotions through colour, you’re not suppressing them — you’re giving them space to exist safely on paper.
The 10-minute ritual
Set a timer for 10 minutes. Gather a few paints, coloured pencils, pastels — whatever’s nearby. Take a breath and tune in:
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How do you feel right now?
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What colour does that feeling look like?
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Is it solid or patchy, swirling or sharp?
Start moving your hand before you start thinking. Let shapes, marks, and tones evolve naturally. You might find your brush moving fast if you’re frustrated, or slow and circular if you’re calm. Don’t judge it. Just keep going until the timer goes off.
This quick, focused window helps you bypass perfectionism. It’s short enough to feel manageable, but long enough to connect you to yourself.
The psychology behind “mood mapping”
Psychologists call this process externalisation — the act of moving what’s inside you (thoughts, tension, energy) into something visible and tangible. Studies show that expressive art reduces activity in the amygdala — the part of the brain that controls fear and stress — and increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex, improving clarity and problem-solving (Kaimal et al., Art Therapy Journal, 2016).
That’s why, after you finish a mood painting, you often feel lighter, clearer, and more grounded. You’ve moved emotion out of your mind and into form.
Make it a mindful ritual
Try doing a mood painting every day for a week. Label each with the date and one word that sums up your feeling — hopeful, heavy, restless, grateful. Over time, you’ll begin to notice patterns.
Some people find that simply seeing their feelings expressed helps them feel more at peace. Others discover that colours shift as moods do — more yellow on sunny days, deeper blues on quiet ones.
As mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn says, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” Painting your mood helps you surf those emotional waves, with colour as your compass.
Beyond emotion — into growth
This small daily act of creativity becomes a check-in point with yourself. It teaches you presence, patience, and compassion. You don’t have to produce a masterpiece. You’re simply learning to meet yourself where you are.
And often, the very act of showing up with honesty transforms your state. You might begin in greys, but end up mixing gold by the time you’re done. That’s the quiet magic of art as therapy — it doesn’t demand change, yet it gently encourages it.
Try this: The Colour Journal
If you’d like to take this further, create a “colour journal.” Each page represents a day. Paint a small square or circle with your colour of the day and jot down one sentence about it.
After a month, flip back through your pages — you’ll have a visual diary of your emotional landscape. It’s fascinating to see how it shifts, and how much you’ve learned just from taking ten mindful minutes each day.
Final thought:
Art doesn’t always have to be about the big picture. Sometimes, it’s about capturing a single breath of the day — in the hue of your heart. Whether it’s a stormy indigo or a calm green, each colour tells your story.
So grab your brush, set your timer, and ask yourself: what colour is today?
This post is a collaborative effort between AI and myself in order to work a little bit faster.
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