Messpainting

1. Introduction

Version followed: none exists. No published method, manual, founder or training body for "messpainting" (fast spontaneous painting on newsprint) could be found. This guide describes only what sources document about (a) community "mess painting" workshops, (b) mess-making as studied in art psychotherapy, and (c) published guidance on fluid paint media. Everything beyond that is marked [synthesis]. [source: web searches for "messpainting", "mess painting" and related terms; Toi Pōneke event pages; Frankie/PressReader article; Hinds 2025]

What sources show. "Mess painting" appears as a name for community art workshops, not as a therapy. Examples: artist Selene Simcox's workshops at Studio 30, Toi Pōneke Arts Centre, Wellington (2 hours in 2023, 3 hours in March 2024, up to 10 people). They are described as painting messily to rekindle creativity and playfulness and to release tension, in a space without judgement. Separately, the Melbourne "Making A Mess" workshops (Charlotte Alldis, Julia Talacko, Krissy Agostini; running since 2019) aim to make a "mess" rather than polished art. [source: Toi Pōneke event pages 2023, 2024; Frankie via PressReader 2021] None of these sources mention newsprint, speed, a protocol or an originator. [uncertain: a description as "fast spontaneous painting on newsprint" could not be verified in any source]

Nearest clinical literature. Hinds (2025) interviewed seven UK qualified art psychotherapists about mess-making in art psychotherapy. It reports four themes:

• "Mess is welcome here"
• mess as a communication tool
• the unfolding journey of mess
• the active therapist

It also says mess-making moves through identifiable stages over a therapy. Only the abstract is drawn on. [source: Hinds 2025, QMU eResearch record] Spontaneous painting as an art therapy approach has a separate British history: E. M. Lyddiatt, Spontaneous Painting and Modelling: A Practical Approach in Therapy (Constable, 1971). That book is not drawn on and is not shown to be the source of "messpainting". [uncertain] [source: Wellcome Collection catalogue]

Implied idea of change (as sources state it). The workshops claim that dropping the aim of a finished, "good" picture lowers inhibition and self-judgement, frees play and bodily movement, and eases tension and anxiety. One facilitator says calling the product a mess rather than art helps people move and create. [source: Frankie 2021; Toi Pōneke] In art psychotherapy, mess is treated as a communication of the client's inner world, received by an active therapist inside a contained relationship. [source: Hinds 2025 abstract] Fluid, water-based paint is described as having "potential for regressive engagement and high levels of emotional arousal". [source: Haiblum-Itskovitch et al. 2018] These are claims of mechanism, not tested outcomes. [uncertain]

2. Framework

No phases, session counts or transition criteria are published for messpainting. [uncertain/not found] What the sources do document:

• Community workshop format:
  • a single 2–3 hour session, small group (10 places), materials supplied
  • aprons or old clothes advised
  • an artist facilitator, not a therapist
  • [source: Toi Pōneke 2023, 2024]
• "Making A Mess" format:
  • each session starts with a loosening exercise (continuous-line drawings of each other's faces, moving round the circle)
  • then time divided between individual works and collaborative large-format pieces
  • facilitators do the clean-up
  • [source: Frankie 2021]
• Mess within art psychotherapy: Hinds (2025) says mess-making unfolds in stages across the therapeutic journey. The abstract does not name the stages, so they are not reproduced here. [uncertain]

Suggested frame for a psychotherapist [synthesis — not from any source]:

Use alongside your main therapy model, not as a stand-alone treatment. [synthesis]

3. Guiding principles

Source-documented:

• Non-judgement / product doesn't matter. Say outright that the aim is a mess, not a good picture. [source: Toi Pōneke; Frankie 2021]
• Playfulness. Present it as play and treat laughter and experiment as part of the work. [source: Toi Pōneke]
• Warm up first. Open with a loosening exercise before the main painting. [source: Frankie 2021]
• Mess is welcome here. The therapist conveys, by word and room set-up, that mess is allowed. [source: Hinds 2025 abstract]
• Mess communicates. Treat what is made, and how it is made, as communication to explore, not as a by-product. [source: Hinds 2025 abstract]
• The active therapist. The therapist stays engaged, attentive and responsive during mess-making, not a passive bystander. [source: Hinds 2025 abstract; specifics not drawn on]
• Choose media in relationship. Choose and adjust material properties (fluid to resistive), task complexity and task structure according to how the client responded to your previous choices. [source: VanMeter & Hinz 2026, ETC]
• Observe engagement with the material. How a client handles a material is clinical information about emotional and cognitive state. [source: Haiblum-Itskovitch et al. 2018]
• Fluid paint raises arousal and regression potential. Expect a stronger emotional pull than with pencils or markers, and plan for it. [source: Haiblum-Itskovitch et al. 2018 — note their healthy sample did not show higher physiological arousal with gouache]
• Clean-up is the facilitator's job (workshop practice). [source: Frankie 2021]

[synthesis] additions:

• Containment before freedom. Set physical limits (sheet, table, time, apron) so that looseness happens inside clear edges.
• Client controls pace and can stop. Any round can be ended or slowed; speed is offered as an invitation, never a demand.
• No diagnostic reading. Never read marks, colours or "messiness" as evidence of a disorder or of abuse; no validated manual exists for this.
• Title and scope honesty. In the UK, "art therapist" and "art psychotherapist" are HCPC-protected titles. A non-registered psychotherapist using paint should call it an expressive or creative exercise within their own therapy, not art therapy. [source: BAAT 2024]

4. Intervention inventory

The inventory has two parts. Part A lists elements that sources document; their actual wording and steps are not published, so all steps are paraphrased descriptions or are marked [synthesis]. Part B is a clinician's protocol for fast painting on newsprint. It is entirely [synthesis] and is not a published technique.

A. Documented elements

A1. Loosening warm-up: continuous-line portraits round the circle (group)

• Purpose / when: Opens a group session; lowers self-consciousness and builds contact before painting. [source: Frankie 2021 — Making A Mess]
• Steps: The source states only that participants draw each other's faces in a continuous line, moving round the circle so everyone makes eye contact. Practical additions [synthesis]:
  1. Seat the group in a circle with a pad and marker each.
  2. Each person draws the person opposite or beside them without lifting the pen, for about 30–60 seconds.
  3. Rotate and repeat until each person has drawn several others.
  4. Share drawings lightly. Laughter at the results is the point.
• Example language (illustrative): "Keep the pen on the paper the whole time and don't look down much. These are meant to be wonky."
• Watch for: Clients with social anxiety, body-image concerns or trauma linked to being looked at may find mutual gazing hard. Offer drawing a hand or an object instead. [synthesis]

A2. Messy painting session (workshop format)

• Purpose / when: To reconnect with play, release tension and paint without judgement. Documented as a 2–3 hour community workshop led by an artist, not as therapy. [source: Toi Pōneke 2023, 2024]
• Steps (documented):
  • small group (up to 10)
  • all materials supplied
  • participants wear aprons or old clothes
  • the facilitator paints alongside participants
  • the 3-hour version adds "new components" that are not described
  • [uncertain: no further method published]
• Example language (illustrative): "Today nothing has to look like anything. If it turns into a mess, that's the session working."
• Watch for: Workshop sources make wellbeing claims (relaxation, less anxiety) without outcome data. Do not present these as clinical effects. [source: Frankie 2021; synthesis]

A3. Collaborative large-format painting

• Purpose / when: Group cohesion and shared play; takes the pressure off any one person's product. [source: Frankie 2021]
• Steps: The source says participants work on giant shared canvases or salvaged plastic sheets with paint, stencils and other media, alongside individual works. Practical additions [synthesis]:
  1. Tape a large sheet to the floor or a wall.
  2. Agree basic rules: no painting over someone's area without asking, no painting on people.
  3. Work in turns or all at once, then step back and look together.
• Example language (illustrative): "Add to anyone's marks if they nod. If you want a corner left alone, say so."
• Watch for: Intrusion or dominance on the shared surface. Treat it as group material and name it gently. [synthesis]

A4. Making mess welcome (therapist stance and room)

• Purpose / when: Before and during any mess-making, so the client knows it is permitted. [source: Hinds 2025 — theme "Mess is welcome here"]
• Steps [synthesis — the specific practices reported by Hinds's participants are not drawn on]:
  1. Cover the surfaces.
  2. Have water, wipes and aprons visible.
  3. Say explicitly that spills are fine.
  4. Agree the time for clean-up and who does it.
  5. Model looseness yourself if appropriate.
• Example language (illustrative): "Everything here is covered, so you can't damage anything. We'll stop five minutes early to clear up."
• Watch for: Clients from settings where mess was punished may test or freeze. Repeat the permission and keep the limits steady. [synthesis]

A5. Exploring mess as communication

• Purpose / when: After or during mess-making, to understand what the mess and the process express. [source: Hinds 2025 — theme "mess as a communication tool"]
• Steps [synthesis]:
  1. Invite description before meaning: what happened, what the body did, what it felt like.
  2. Notice process (speed, pressure, spilling, containing, destroying, covering over), not only the image.
  3. Offer tentative links to the client's life only if the client opens them.
• Example language (illustrative): "What was it like when the paint ran off the edge?" "You covered that area three times. What was happening then?"
• Watch for: Do not impose interpretations, and do not treat images as diagnostic evidence. [synthesis; see Section 3]

A6. Adjusting media properties, task complexity and structure (ETC)

• Purpose / when: To raise or lower arousal and move processing between levels by changing material and task. [source: VanMeter & Hinz 2026 — Media Dimension Variables after Graves-Alcorn]
• Steps:
  1. Note where the material sits on the fluid-to-resistive range. Paint is fluid; pencil is resistive. [source: Haiblum-Itskovitch et al. 2018 on material structure and fluidity]
  2. Note the task's complexity (number of steps) and structure (how much is specified).
  3. Change one variable at a time based on how the client responded to your last choice. [source: VanMeter & Hinz 2026]
  4. To contain: thicker paint, smaller sheet, crayons or oil pastels, more structure. To loosen: more water, bigger sheet, less structure. [synthesis built on ETC fluid–resistive logic]
• Example language (illustrative): "Let's switch to oil pastels for the next one. They hold their shape more."
• Watch for: VanMeter & Hinz state that the same change can help or disrupt depending on relational attunement. Track the client's response after each change. [source]

A7. Observing the client's engagement with paint

• Purpose / when: Throughout, as ongoing assessment of emotional and cognitive state. [source: Haiblum-Itskovitch et al. 2018]
• Steps [synthesis]: Note brush grip and pressure, speed, use of space, colour mixing into mud, whether the client stays on the sheet, reactions to accidents, and the ability to stop. Record these descriptively in notes.
• Watch for: The authors report that gouache raised positive mood more than pencil, but in a healthy sample it did not raise physiological arousal (HRV) more than oil pastels. Arousal in clinical clients may differ. [source; uncertain for clinical groups]

B. Clinician's protocol for fast spontaneous painting on newsprint [synthesis — not a published method]

B1. Set-up and materials check

• Purpose: Safe, contained conditions for quick, wet work.
• Steps:
  1. Use non-toxic, water-based paint (poster or tempera), wide brushes and sponges, and a stack of newsprint (cheap, so there's no pressure to make it precious).
  2. Newsprint is thin and may tear or soak through with wet paint, and paper thickness affects how well it holds aqueous media [source: Haiblum-Itskovitch et al. 2018]. So put a protective layer underneath, or use heavier paper for slower pieces.
  3. Cover the floor, clear walkways and keep wipes nearby. Wet paint on smooth floors is a slip risk.
  4. Agree with the client on clothing or an apron.
• Watch for: Allergies or sensitivities to materials, sensory aversion to wet hands, and mobility limits. Offer gloves, longer-handled tools or a seated, tabletop set-up.

B2. Framing and consent

• Purpose: The client chooses freely and knows the exits.
• Steps:
  1. Explain the idea: quick sheets, no aim of a good picture.
  2. Agree a stop signal.
  3. State that the client may slow down, switch media or stop at any point.
  4. Agree what happens to the sheets afterwards: kept in the folder, taken home, or discarded.
• Example language (illustrative): "We'll do a few very quick sheets. It's not about making something good. If at any point you'd rather slow down or stop, just say."

B3. Timed rounds

• Purpose: Speed bypasses planning and self-criticism; the series shows movement over time.
• Steps:
  1. Start with a short demonstration or a 30-second free mark-making round.
  2. Run 3–6 rounds of about 1–3 minutes each on a fresh sheet. Use a timer and call time gently.
  3. Prompt options:
     • no prompt
     • a feeling word the client chooses
     • "paint how the week felt"
     • movement-led ("use your whole arm")
  4. Lay each finished sheet aside without comment.
  5. Pause for a breath and a body check between rounds.
• Example language (illustrative): "Next sheet. Two minutes. Let the brush go wherever it wants."
• Watch for:
  • Signs it is working: freer movement, less checking with you, curiosity, laughter, emotion showing at a manageable level.
  • Signs to slow down: rising agitation, dissociation, compulsive covering or destroying, self-critical commentary.

B4. Slow review of the series

• Purpose: Turn the fast experience into reflection; this is where clinical use happens.
• Steps:
  1. Lay out all the sheets in order.
  2. Ask the client to look for a minute before speaking.
  3. Ask about process and body first, then any images or meanings.
  4. Let the client choose one sheet to stay with, give it a title, or respond to it with a slower medium.
• Example language (illustrative): "Looking along the row, what changes? Which one would you want to keep, and which would you throw away?"
• Watch for: Pressure to explain. The client may simply say it felt good. Accept that. [synthesis; see A5]

B5. Closure and clean-up

• Purpose: A shift back to ordinary functioning and containment of what came up.
• Steps:
  1. Stop with time to spare.
  2. Clear up together or, as in workshop practice, the facilitator does it [source: Frankie 2021].
  3. Store or discard the sheets as agreed.
  4. End with a brief grounding check.
• Example language (illustrative): "Let's put the paints away. On a scale of calm to stirred up, where are you leaving?"

5. Handling problems

No source addresses problems in messpainting specifically. Everything below is [synthesis] except where a source is tagged.

• Stuck or blank client ("I can't paint").
  • Lower the bar: one colour, a 30-second round, or painting with a sponge or fingers instead of a brush.
  • Offer a movement prompt instead of an image prompt ("just make the brush go round").
  • Restate that a mess is the goal. Workshop sources use this reframe to reduce self-judgement. [source: Frankie 2021]
• Perfectionism and resistance to mess.
  • Do not push speed.
  • Start with a more resistive medium (crayon, oil pastel) and move gradually towards fluid paint, adjusting one variable at a time and following the client's response. [source: VanMeter & Hinz 2026]
  • Explore the reluctance itself as material. Hinds's theme of mess as communication supports treating avoidance of mess as meaningful too. [source: Hinds 2025, inferred]
• Overwhelm, flooding or regression.
  • Fluid paint carries potential for regressive engagement and high arousal. [source: Haiblum-Itskovitch et al. 2018]
  • If the client becomes agitated, tearful beyond tolerance, dissociative, or starts destroying compulsively:
    1. Stop the timer.
    2. Slow the pace.
    3. Switch to a structured or resistive medium.
    4. Ground with breath, feet and naming objects in the room.
    5. Move to talking.
  • Do not restart fast rounds in that session.
  • Screen out or defer use with clients in acute psychosis, mania, severe dissociation or recent trauma who lack stabilisation. Use only with a supervisor or an art psychotherapist if you are unsure.
• Over-excitement and loss of limits (paint on walls, people or self; deliberate spilling).
  • Hold the physical boundaries agreed in advance.
  • Pause the activity and reflect on what happened, without shaming.
• Non-adherence (client doesn't want to repeat it).
  • Respect the choice. This is an optional technique.
  • Ask what the experience was like and offer another expressive or verbal route.
• Ruptures (client feels exposed, judged or infantilised).
  • Name the possible misattunement and invite feedback.
  • Separate the technique from the relationship ("maybe that wasn't the right activity for today").
  • Never comment on the quality of the picture.
• Self-harm themes in the images, or blood-like use of red paint.
  • Do not interpret the image as evidence of risk on its own.
  • Ask directly about current self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
  • Follow your service's standard risk-assessment and safety-planning procedure.
• Children and young people.
  • Follow local safeguarding and mandatory-reporting duties for anything the child says or does.
  • Do not treat drawings or paintings as evidence of abuse. No validated messpainting assessment exists.
  • Get the parent or carer's consent and the child's assent.
  • Brief carers about clothes and mess.
  • Use shorter rounds and closer supervision with paint and water.
• Client wants to keep, destroy or have you keep the work.
  • Agree in advance. Any change to the agreement is clinical material.
  • Follow your service's rules on records and storage of client artwork.

Professional frame and safety

• No credential exists for "messpainting". No training body, credential or regulated profession for it was found. [not found]
• UK titles are protected. The HCPC regulates art therapists and art psychotherapists, and only registrants who have completed an HCPC-approved programme may use these titles. Falsely claiming or implying registration is a criminal offence. [source: BAAT 2024] A psychotherapist who is not an art therapist may use painting exercises within their own competence but should not call it art therapy.
• US credentials. The registered credential is the ATR, awarded by the ATCB, with board certification above it; AATA sets educational standards. [source: Junge in Gussak & Rosal 2016]
• When to refer or consult. Get supervision from, or refer to, a registered art therapist for sustained or clinically central use of mess-making, and for high-risk clients. [synthesis]
• Materials and physical safety [synthesis]:
  • non-toxic, water-based paints only; check product labels
  • no solvents or aerosol paints indoors
  • floor coverings to prevent slips
  • keep paint water away from electrical sockets
  • check for allergies
  • handwashing facilities
  • extra supervision with young children (ingestion risk)
• Community workshops as a referral option. Arts workshops such as the Wellington and Melbourne examples are arts activity, not therapy: they are artist-led, with no clinical assessment or confidentiality frame. [source: Toi Pōneke; Frankie 2021] A therapist may suggest them to a client as a social or creative outlet and process the experience in sessions. [synthesis]

Sources

Sources:

• Mess Painting – Facilitated by Selene Simcox (Toi Pōneke, 2 Dec 2023)
• Mess Painting (Toi Pōneke, 16 Mar 2024)
• Making a mess (Frankie, via PressReader, 2021)
• An exploration of the role of mess-making in art psychotherapy – Hinds, QMU eResearch record — abstract only
• Myths About the Expressive Therapies Continuum, Part III – VanMeter & Hinz, AATA, 2026
• Emotional Response and Changes in HRV Following Art-Making With Three Different Art Materials – Haiblum-Itskovitch, Czamanski-Cohen & Galili, Frontiers in Psychology, 2018
• Spontaneous painting and modelling – Wellcome Collection catalogue record
• Wiley Handbook of Art Therapy, excerpt (Junge, History of Art Therapy)
• 'Art therapist' as protected title – BAAT Insight, Winter 2024

Books and papers cited:

• Hinds, R. (2025). An exploration of the role of mess-making in art psychotherapy. International Journal of Art Therapy, 30(2), 102–112. doi:10.1080/17454832.2024.2434471 (abstract only)
• Lyddiatt, E. M. (1971). Spontaneous Painting and Modelling: A Practical Approach in Therapy. London: Constable. (catalogue record only) [uncertain]
• Gussak, D. E., & Rosal, M. L. (Eds.) (2016). The Wiley Handbook of Art Therapy. Wiley. (Junge chapter excerpt)

Not found: any originator, manual, training programme or primary text for "messpainting" as fast spontaneous painting on newsprint.