Summer Challenge: Make Land Art to Boost Mental Health

We’ve reached the final week of our summer challenge!

Over the last month, we’ve asked readers to try device-free nature walks (congratulations if you’re still at it), scroll-free bedtimes, and a ’90s-style hangout without phones.

Our last week is inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, a British artist and environmentalist. He is known for creating ephemeral land art using found natural materials like stones and twigs. Goldsworthy has said that he uses art to explore our intimate connection to the natural world — as he once put it, “art that actually opens your eyes and mind to what’s there.”

This week, you’ll gather materials from nature to make temporary land art, which stays outside and, by design, eventually breaks down. This exercise immerses you in the outdoors and encourages you to appreciate even the smallest patches of green.

Making land art is accessible and easy, said Girija Kaimal, founder of the Health, Arts, Learning and Evaluation research lab at Drexel University. If you’ve ever built a sand castle or a snowman, you’ve done it.

Research suggests that making art increases well-being and confidence, and reduces stress. If you make art outside, said Megan Delaney, a professor of psychology at Monmouth University and principal investigator of the university’s Ecopsychology “Touch Grass” Lab, you can double those benefits.

Here’s how to do it.

First, find a spot that has a good amount of materials, whether that’s a park, your backyard or a city block, said Austin Kleon, author of “Don’t Call It Art: 10 Ways to Create Like a Kid Again.”

Then take stock, he said. What materials are available? Sticks, rocks, bark or leaves? For about 15 minutes, collect whatever catches your eye, he said. “Just don’t take living things.”

You can keep it simple and gather several items in one category, Dr. Kaimal said. Even gray pebbles have variations in colors, textures and shapes, she added.

You can also do this project with another person, Dr. Kaimal explained. If you both bring materials from the areas around you, you can expand your “palette,” she added.

Move stuff around.

Assess what you’ve collected. Then get creative, and “start moving stuff around,” Kleon said.

You can make a flat design of leaves and twigs, such as a simple spiral pattern, or concentric circles with different materials, he said.

Or you can also make a 3D design, like a stack of rocks, Dr. Kaimal said.

Don’t overthink it, Kleon said. Just savor being outside and away from your screens. “Tap into the fun of doing stuff for no good reason,” he added.

Activities such as stacking stones can be a form of meditation, because they allow us to feel relaxed and present, said Dr. Delaney, who likes to create “nature mandalas,” geometric designs that are typically circular, with her students.

When you’re done, admire your creation and then leave it to gradually diminish.

Land art isn’t your thing?

There are other ways that you can be creative without your phone. Visit a museum or an art gallery or sketch a scene outdoors.

Last weekend, after seeing the work of land artist Mayumi Nakabayashi, I was inspired to make a nature mandala in my backyard from garden clippings that my husband had put in a pile.

As I assembled my design of deadheaded flowers and leaves, he couldn’t resist offering some ivy that he had cleared from a tree trunk.

Soon we were both absorbed in the process — two middle-aged people constructing our land art like industrious toddlers.