Interested in Virtual Team Building Events?
11 mins 
1. What Are Team Building Art Activities?
Team building art activities include a whole host of creative pursuits, such as drawing, sculpting, and painting. While they may seem recreational, these imaginative exercises can encourage greater social interaction between employees, helping them to build easier working relationships with one another. Arty workshops also provide an outlet for stressed-out staff to release their emotions in a healthy, constructive way.
2. 12 Art-tastic Team Building Activities to Spark Creativity & Connection
2.1. Collaborative Canvas Creation
Create a piece of art that’s also a symbol of the collective creativity of your business. One of the most popular group painting activities, a collaborative canvas involves assigning individuals or teams to different parts of a large-scale painting. Each person or unit works on their own segment, before the pieces are united together into one big picture. Colleagues must rely on strong communication skills as well as artistic flair.
This painting group activity requires a lot of coordination and planning to get the finished result right. If you want a third-party business to oversee the nuts and bolts, check out team-building specialists like Catalyst and creative institutes like Arts Club.
Our Tip : Collaborative artwork doesn’t have to be an in-person activity. It’s possible to create a digital mosaic in pieces or even work on a digital canvas live using online tools.
2.2. Virtual Paint Class
A team building painting class is the mainstay of arty company gatherings. Armed with a glass of wine or a fizzy soft drink, employees will be taught a few basic techniques, before being unleashed on their canvas to channel their inner Rembrandt or Rubens. This group painting activity is all about bolstering the camaraderie between colleagues, so make sure that you encourage plenty of conversation as people set about with their brushes and palettes.
Hooray Teams is one of several virtual team-building specialists that offer a guided painting class. Aside from providing an instructor for the 60-minute session, one of their standout attributes is that they send out a full kit of materials beforehand.
Our Tip: You can even add on a bottle of wine to recreate the full Paint and Sip experience.
2.3. Blind Contour Drawing Challenge
A technique borrowed from art students, blind contour drawing involves sketching the outline of an object or person without looking at the page or raising the pencil. In other words, staff are forced to focus solely on the thing they are capturing, rather than on the progress of their work.
Blind contour drawing can help sharpen observational skills and improve hand-eye coordination. It will also undoubtedly produce quite a lot of laughs, as the results can be comical for people attempting the approach for the first time.
Suitable for both virtual and in-office settings, blind contour drawing can take anywhere between 2 to 20 minutes, depending on the complexity of the object or model being drawn.
Our Tip: For company team building art activities, we recommend about 10 minutes max per sketch. This should allow employees several chances to try their hand at the technique in 1 hour, as well as plenty of time to show their attempts and discuss the experience.
2. 4. Graffiti Design on Paper
Taking a page out of the street art handbook, this activity explores the skills behind creating graffiti without the need for a vacant wall to experiment upon. The only materials you’ll need are some colored markers and blank pieces of paper.
Just like painting team building, this activity can be conducted in person or virtually. There are several great YouTube videos to help you get started, or you can hire a professional company like Kabloom to handle the logistics.
Our Tip: Add an educational element to the proceedings by including a few facts on the history of graffiti for staff to absorb while they’re learning to create their own custom tags.
2. 5. Guess the Sketch
Not all team building art activities have to center on developing creative skills. Guess the Sketch is an entertaining game for both in-person and remote teams that centers on communication and teamwork. When playing in an office, make sure you have a big whiteboard and a couple of markers. When playing online, video conferencing platforms like Zoom have built-in virtual whiteboards. Alternatively, you can use a website like Skribbl to set up a private game for your team.
To get started, divide all players into two teams. Each person then takes turns to draw a random word. If their team guesses the word within 60 seconds, they score a point.
Our Tip: The prompts can be written down by the organizer on pieces of paper beforehand or randomly generated using an online program.
2.6. Sidewalk Chalk Art Challenge
Who on your team could be the next Julian Beever? Find out with one of the most fun and easy to organize team building art projects for adults. All you need is chalk and a vacant sidewalk.
For in-office teams, ideally, you want to find a large, paved space of driveway on the company property where your team can scrawl some designs. For remote workers, just pick a lesser-trodden spot outside your home. The great thing about chalk is that it can be easily washed away with a pail of water and scrubbing brush – just make sure that you snap a picture of the finished art first.
Our Tip: Introduce a competitive element to the challenge by offering up a virtual prize, such as a gift voucher or a streaming subscription, for the best chalk drawing.
2.7. Abstract Art Discussion
The beauty of abstract art is that it can take on different meanings to different people. Why not set up a discussion group as a team building painting activity, providing a forum for staff to talk about their interpretations of different pieces of famous abstract art? It doesn’t matter if somebody is an expert or a complete novice on the topic, the point is simply to promote conversations within your team, whether in person or online.
Consider including some information about the history of abstract art as a starting point for the session. This can be found on specialist websites. Of course, you don’t have to limit yourself to abstract art. There are lots of other forms and eras that can fuel thoughtful dissection, including cubism, surrealism, and pop art.
Our Tip: You can add a community angle by asking a local artist or academic to give a talk on the subject.
2.8. Zentangle Pattern Drawing
A relatively recent phenomenon, the Zentangle Method is a way of turning repeating patterns into a work of art. The name is a portmanteau of Zen and tangle because the approach is designed to foster relaxation through creating so-called ‘tangles’: structured patterns consisting of lines, curves, orbs, and/or dots.
All you really need to make a Zentangle is a piece of paper and a drawing implement. Although there are eight steps to the process, it’s very straightforward to explain to staff, who can take part in person or online. The most important thing is for everybody to share their Zentangles at the end.
Zentangle is one of the best team building art activities if you want something that stimulates creativity, releases stress, and gives employees a chance to share a bit of their personality with one another.
2.9. Draw Your Emotions
A good way to kick off a meeting, this icebreaker involves each member of staff drawing a picture that represents their mood on a small piece of paper or Post-it note. The image could be a human face with a happy or sad face, but it can also be something more abstract, like a dog or a snow-capped mountain. Encourage everyone to be as creative as they like.
Drawing emotions stimulates staff engagement by triggering proactive behavior and warming up creativity. It can also be helpful as a medium to let employees feel heard. This icebreaker can be used in an office or online.
Our Tip: Our If it’s being done virtually, you can either use a digital whiteboard or ask participants to send a picture of what they’ve drawn at home using the video conferencing tool.
2.10. Design a Team Logo Competition
Give your team a taste of The Apprentice by asking them to design a logo that represents the ethos and objectives behind their work. Not only does this foster creativity, it’s also a great way to get employees thinking precisely about their roles within the company.
While you can have everybody compete individually, this is one of those team building art activities that works best when 3 or 4 people work together. The collaborative decision making and discussions involved in coming up with a logo can only help strengthen a group’s dynamic.
Our Tip: This activity can be undertaken in person or remotely using paid software like Adobe Illustrator or free software like Canva.
2.11. Group Paint Pouring Party
If you like the idea of team building painting activities that involve abstract art but want to get more hands-on than having a discussion, an acrylic paint pouring piece is the way to go. Due to the materials required and the potential messiness, it’s often best done in a pre-prepared meeting space or third-party venue.
Follow in the footsteps of Jackson Pollock by squirting paint over a canvas to create a satisfyingly vibrant canvas that bursts with life. There are lots of techniques your team can try, so it might be worth showing them a video or two that explains some of the possibilities before letting them go wild.
Our Tip: One of several activities like paint and sip, the special beauty of this particular alternative is that anybody can do it, whether they’re a naturally skilled artist or not. It’s all about experimenting with pools of color and creating different shapes.
2.12. Guided Abstract Painting
Last on our list of team building art activities is guided abstract painting. This combines a paint class setting with a focus on the abstract form.
The budget option is to stream a YouTube video to your team, whether online or in-office, but there are also courses that you can take through learning sites like Udemy that last between 60 minutes and 120 minutes. Alternatively, go with an artsy team-building expert like Arts Club if you want a live instructor to guide your staff through creating abstract art in a structured way.
Our Tip: Like many of the artistic endeavors we’ve detailed in this post, abstract painting stimulates the mind while simultaneously relaxing the body. This makes it ideal for facilitating a creative mindset as well as dissipating stress for teams.
3. FAQs
3.1. What is creative team building?
Creative team building encompasses everything from group painting ideas to collaborative logo design. Anything that stimulates the imagination of your workforce in a social setting can be beneficial to developing a team that’s open to discussing and analyzing fresh perspectives and approaches.
3.2. How does art help teamwork?
Team building art activities for employees are particularly good for relationship building. The convivial atmosphere of a creative class provides an opportunity for participants to get to know one another in a more casual environment, building trust and creating a more friendly relationship between staff.
3.3. How art brings people together?
Art opens up an avenue for people to share their personalities and perspectives with others. It’s also been suggested as a way to promote empathy, bringing colleagues closer together through shared understanding and greater thoughtfulness.
