Top 20 'Right-Brain-Rewiring' Iconic Art Styles to Master for Ditching the 9-to-5 Mindset on Weekends - Goh Ling Yong
Does your weekend ever feel like a shrunken, two-day extension of your work week? The spreadsheets, deadlines, and logical problem-solving of Monday-to-Friday can leave your brain stuck in a rigid, analytical loop. You might spend your precious downtime scrolling, binging, and consuming, only to feel just as drained when Sunday evening rolls around. This is your left brain, the master of order and logic, running on overtime.
What you need is a hard reset—a way to switch off the analytical mind and fire up your right brain, the vibrant hub of intuition, imagination, and holistic thinking. The most joyful and effective way to do this? By diving hands-first into the world of art. Not just doodling, but intentionally exploring iconic art styles that force you to see, think, and create in ways that are completely alien to a 9-to-5 mindset.
This isn't about becoming the next Picasso overnight. It's about the process. It's about rewiring your neural pathways to embrace imperfection, see the big picture, and find creative solutions—skills that, ironically, make you better at everything, including your day job. So, put on some old clothes, clear a space on your table, and get ready to trade your keyboard for a paintbrush. Here are 20 iconic art styles perfect for your weekend right-brain rewiring.
1. Surrealism: Tapping into Your Subconscious
Surrealism is the art of the dream world. Pioneered by artists like Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, it juxtaposes bizarre, unrelated images in a hyper-realistic way to unlock the power of the unconscious mind. It’s all about letting go of logic and seeing what strange, wonderful connections your brain makes on its own.
This style is a direct rebellion against the rational mind that governs your work week. Instead of asking "Does this make sense?", you ask "What does this feel like?". It trains you to embrace ambiguity and find meaning in the nonsensical, a powerful tool for creative problem-solving.
Get Started Tip: Try an automatic drawing exercise. Close your eyes and let your pen or pencil move freely across the paper for a full minute. Then, open your eyes and find shapes and figures within the scribbles, developing them into a strange and wonderful scene.
2. Impressionism: Capturing Fleeting Moments
Forget perfect lines and painstaking detail. Impressionism, championed by Claude Monet, is about capturing the feeling of a moment—specifically, the way light plays on a scene. It’s characterized by short, thick brushstrokes, an emphasis on color over form, and a sense of vibrant movement.
The 9-to-5 world is about precision and permanence. Impressionism is the opposite. It forces you to work quickly, trust your eyes, and capture an essence before it disappears. You learn to stop overthinking and simply react to the world around you, observing how a shadow is not just grey, but filled with blues and purples.
Get Started Tip: Set up a simple object, like a piece of fruit, near a window. Set a timer for 15 minutes and paint it, focusing only on the patches of light and color you see. Don't draw the apple; paint the light on the apple.
3. Pop Art: Finding the Extraordinary in the Ordinary
Pop Art, made famous by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, turns everyday objects and pop culture icons into high art. It uses bold colors, sharp lines, and techniques borrowed from commercial printing (like Ben-Day dots) to celebrate and critique the mundane, mass-produced world.
This style rewires your brain to see the potential for creativity everywhere. That can of soup in your pantry? The ads you scroll past? They can all become subjects for your art. It breaks down the barrier between "high art" and "low culture," encouraging you to find inspiration and beauty in your immediate environment.
Get Started Tip: Take a photo of a common household object. Print it out, trace the main outlines onto a canvas or thick paper, and then fill it in with wild, unrealistic, flat colors. Think a bright pink banana or a turquoise toaster.
4. Abstract Expressionism: Unleashing Raw Emotion
This is where you truly let go. Abstract Expressionism, practiced by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, is less about painting a thing and more about expressing an inner emotional state directly onto the canvas. It’s about the physical act of painting—the drips, splashes, and energetic strokes.
Your job probably requires you to keep your emotions in check. This art style gives them a voice. It’s a therapeutic and liberating way to process feelings without words. There are no rules, no mistakes—only pure, unfiltered expression. It’s a powerful antidote to a week of being polite and professional.
Get Started Tip: Put a large sheet of paper on the floor, turn on some loud music that matches your mood, and just go for it. Use old house paint, acrylics, whatever you have. Drip it, throw it, spread it with a spatula. Focus on the movement and the energy, not the result.
5. Cubism: Seeing from All Angles at Once
Founded by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, Cubism shatters traditional perspective. Instead of depicting an object from a single viewpoint, Cubist artists show it from multiple angles simultaneously, breaking it down into geometric forms and reassembling it.
Cubism is a mental workout that obliterates linear thinking. It forces you to deconstruct something you know well (like a face or a guitar) and see it in a completely new, multi-dimensional way. This is the ultimate exercise in perspective-shifting, a skill that's invaluable when you're stuck on a problem at work or in life.
Get Started Tip: Choose a simple object like a coffee mug. Draw its front view. Then, on the same drawing, add a view of the handle from the side and the rim from above. Don't worry if it looks "wrong"—that's the point!
6. Ukiyo-e: Embracing Flatness and Flowing Lines
Ukiyo-e, or "pictures of the floating world," is a style of Japanese woodblock printing from the 17th-19th centuries. Artists like Hokusai and Hiroshige are famous for their stylized scenes featuring flat areas of color, bold outlines, and dramatic compositions.
Western art is often obsessed with realism and 3D perspective. Ukiyo-e teaches you the beauty of flatness and the power of a single, elegant line. It’s a meditative process of simplifying complex scenes into their most essential elements, training your eye for composition and design.
Get Started Tip: Find a photo of a landscape you like. Using a fine-tipped marker, try to capture the scene using only strong outlines and minimal detail. Then, fill in the shapes with flat washes of watercolor or colored pencil. Focus on creating a pleasing arrangement of shapes.
7. Pointillism: Building a World Dot by Dot
A fascinating offshoot of Impressionism, Pointillism involves creating an entire image out of tiny, distinct dots of pure color. From a distance, the viewer's eye optically blends the dots to see a full, luminous picture. Georges Seurat is the undisputed master of this meticulous technique.
While it seems painstaking, Pointillism is an incredibly meditative and calming process. It breaks down a complex image into a simple, repetitive action. It’s a lesson in patience and process, teaching you that a magnificent whole can be built from thousands of tiny, manageable steps—a great metaphor for tackling large projects.
Get Started Tip: Use cotton swabs or the back of a paintbrush dipped in paint. Start with a simple shape, like a circle, and fill it in with dots of different colors. Place yellow and blue dots next to each other to create the illusion of green from a distance.
8. Fauvism: Painting with Pure, Joyful Color
The Fauves ("wild beasts"), led by Henri Matisse, used color as an emotional force, not a descriptive one. They painted with intense, non-naturalistic hues straight from the tube—think pink skies, orange trees, and blue faces. The goal was to express pure, unadulterated joy through color.
This is the perfect style for breaking out of a "black-and-white" thinking pattern. Fauvism gives you permission to ignore reality and follow your intuition. It’s a celebration of subjectivity and personal expression. If a tree feels red to you, then paint it red! It’s an exercise in trusting your gut.
Get Started Tip: Paint a simple self-portrait or a portrait of your pet, but assign colors based on emotion or just what you find beautiful. Don't try to match skin tones or fur colors. Use the most vibrant, "wrong" colors you can find.
9. Minimalism: The Art of "Less is More"
Minimalism strips art down to its essential components. It's about extreme simplicity of form, using basic geometric shapes, a limited color palette, and clean, unadorned surfaces. Artists like Donald Judd and Frank Stella created works that are direct, objective, and without hidden meaning.
After a week of information overload—emails, meetings, data—Minimalism is a visual and mental palate cleanser. It teaches you the power of negative space and the impact of a single, well-placed element. Creating a minimalist piece forces you to make deliberate choices and eliminate everything that is not absolutely essential.
Get Started Tip: On a white canvas, paint a single, perfect black square. Or, draw just one straight line that perfectly divides the page. Spend time considering the placement, the weight of the line, and the space around it. Feel the calm of its simplicity.
10. Doodling & Zentangle: Finding Flow in Repetitive Patterns
Doodling is something we do instinctively, but Zentangle turns it into a structured, mindful practice. It involves drawing structured patterns ("tangles") within a defined space. There's no grand plan; you focus on one simple stroke at a time, allowing a complex pattern to emerge.
This is a fantastic way to quiet the "inner critic" and the part of your brain that needs to plan everything. The process is repetitive and rhythmic, inducing a state of relaxed focus similar to meditation. It’s proof that you don't need a big idea to create something beautiful; you just need to start.
Get Started Tip: Draw a 4x4 inch square on a piece of paper. Divide it into a few sections with random lines. In each section, fill it with a different, simple repetitive pattern: circles, lines, cross-hatching, scales, etc. Don't worry about what it will become, just enjoy the process.
11. Street Art / Stenciling: Making a Bold, Quick Statement
From the complex graffiti murals to the politically charged stencils of Banksy, street art is defined by its speed, boldness, and public nature. Stenciling, in particular, is a great entry point, allowing you to create a sharp, repeatable image quickly.
This style injects a bit of rebellious, fast-paced energy into your weekend. Designing and cutting a stencil is a deliberate, focused task (left brain), but the act of spraying it is quick, intuitive, and a little bit thrilling (right brain). It’s about creating a high-impact message with simple tools.
Get Started Tip: Draw a simple, high-contrast design on a piece of thick cardstock or an old file folder. Carefully cut it out with a craft knife to create your stencil. Then, use spray paint or a sponge with acrylic paint to apply your design to a piece of cardboard, a tote bag, or a canvas.
12. Collage: Assembling a New Reality
Collage is the art of cutting, arranging, and pasting different materials (like paper, photographs, and fabric) to create a new, composite image. It's a playful, accessible medium that was embraced by artists from Picasso to Hannah Höch.
Collage is the ultimate right-brain connector. It’s about finding surprising relationships between disconnected images and ideas. You’re not creating from a blank slate; you’re remixing the world around you. This process strengthens your ability to synthesize information and think metaphorically. As my friend Goh Ling Yong often says, creativity is about connecting existing dots in new ways, and collage is the literal embodiment of that.
Get Started Tip: Gather a stack of old magazines, newspapers, and junk mail. Don't look for anything specific at first. Just cut out images, textures, and words that catch your eye. Then, start arranging them on a blank page, letting a story or a theme emerge organically.
13. Art Nouveau: Celebrating Organic, Flowing Lines
Art Nouveau is all about nature. Characterized by long, sinuous, and organic lines, this style, seen in the work of Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt, avoids rigid geometry in favor of the flowing curves of plants, flowers, and vines.
If your work life is full of spreadsheets and right angles, Art Nouveau is the perfect antidote. It trains your hand and eye to move in graceful, asymmetrical curves. Drawing in this style feels fluid and natural, reconnecting you with the organic world and pulling you away from the digital grid.
Get Started Tip: Try drawing a simple flower or tree, but exaggerate all the curves. Let the stems and branches flow across the page in elegant S-shapes. Add decorative, whip-like lines to the background.
14. Botanical Illustration: The Art of Mindful Observation
Where Impressionism is about a quick glance, botanical illustration is about deep, mindful looking. It’s the art of rendering plants with scientific accuracy and aesthetic beauty. It requires patience, a steady hand, and an appreciation for the minute details of the natural world.
This style is a masterclass in focus and observation. It quiets the mental chatter by demanding your full attention on the intricate veins of a leaf or the delicate structure of a petal. It’s a slow, contemplative practice that builds an immense appreciation for the complexity and beauty you might normally overlook.
Get Started Tip: Pick a single leaf or a simple flower from your garden or a park. Sit with it for a while. Notice everything about it. Then, try to draw it as accurately as you can, paying close attention to its form, texture, and details.
15. Comic Book Art: Storytelling Through Panels
From the dynamic action of Jack Kirby to the moody shadows of Frank Miller, comic book art is a powerful form of visual storytelling. It combines drawing, composition, and narrative into a single, cohesive art form, using panels, lines, and color to guide the reader's eye and convey emotion.
Thinking in panels forces you to break down a story or an idea into its most crucial moments. It’s an exercise in efficiency and clarity—how can you convey a complex action or emotion in a single image? It’s a fantastic way to practice visual communication and narrative thinking.
Get Started Tip: You don't have to write a whole saga. Just take a simple moment from your day—like making coffee—and draw it out in a three-panel comic strip. Think: 1. Pouring beans. 2. Water brewing. 3. Steam rising from the cup.
16. Wabi-Sabi: Finding Beauty in Imperfection
Wabi-sabi is not just an art style but a Japanese worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. In art, it manifests as an appreciation for asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, and the marks of time and weathering. Think of a cracked ceramic bowl repaired with gold (kintsugi) or a weathered piece of wood.
This philosophy is the ultimate cure for perfectionism, a common side effect of the 9-to-5 grind where mistakes can have consequences. Wabi-sabi teaches you that "flaws" are not errors but part of the object's unique history and beauty. It’s about letting go of control and finding grace in the unpredictable.
Get Started Tip: Try making a simple pinch pot out of air-dry clay. Don't try to make it perfectly smooth or symmetrical. Embrace the fingerprints, the uneven rim, and the slight wobble. Let it be beautifully imperfect.
17. Linocut / Block Printing: The Power of the Negative
Block printing is a relief printing technique where you carve a design into a block of linoleum or wood, roll ink onto the surface, and then press it onto paper. The magic is that you are carving away the "negative space"—the parts you don't want to print.
This process completely flips your visual thinking. You have to think in reverse, focusing on the shapes around your subject. It’s a fantastic mental challenge that strengthens your understanding of composition and positive/negative space. Plus, the reveal of pulling that first print is incredibly satisfying.
Get Started Tip: Start with a small, soft-cut lino block and a simple, bold design (like a silhouette of an animal or a letter). Carve away everything that isn't your design. Roll on some block printing ink and press it firmly onto a piece of paper.
18. Fauxtype (Digital Typography): Playing with Words as Images
In the digital age, typography has become its own art form. Fauxtype, or illustrative lettering, involves creating letterforms that are expressive, decorative, and integral to the artwork's message. It's about treating letters not just as carriers of information, but as beautiful shapes and forms in their own right.
This is a great way to blend the analytical (the meaning of words) with the purely creative (the form of the letters). It allows you to explore mood and personality through shape and line. It’s a modern, accessible art form that just requires a tablet or even just a pen and paper.
Get Started Tip: Pick a single word that resonates with you, like "Breathe" or "Flow." Try writing it in at least five different ways—bubbly and round, sharp and jagged, elegant and flowing. See how the style changes the feeling of the word.
19. Mosaic: Creating Wholes from Broken Pieces
Mosaic is the ancient art of creating images by assembling small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials (tesserae). It’s a process of building a unified picture from a thousand tiny, distinct parts.
This is another art form that celebrates process and patience. It’s a beautiful metaphor for life: taking disparate, sometimes "broken" pieces and arranging them into a cohesive, beautiful whole. The tactile nature of handling the tiles and fitting them together is incredibly grounding and satisfying.
Get Started Tip: You don't need to tile your whole bathroom. Buy a cheap picture frame or a small wooden plaque. Use craft glue to cover it with broken pieces of old plates (wear safety goggles!), sea glass, or colorful beads to create an abstract pattern.
20. Character Design: Breathing Life into an Idea
Character design is the art of creating a unique, believable character through visual cues. It's about conveying personality, story, and emotion through shape, silhouette, color, and expression. It’s the foundation of animation, illustration, and video games.
This is pure, unadulterated imagination. It taps directly into your ability to create a persona and a backstory from scratch. You’re not just drawing a figure; you’re inventing a being. It’s a playful escape that encourages you to think about motivation, personality, and storytelling in a purely visual way. It's a skill I've seen Goh Ling Yong emphasize for its power in creative thinking.
Get Started Tip: Start with simple shapes. Try to design three different characters: one based on a circle (friendly, soft), one on a square (sturdy, stubborn), and one on a triangle (dynamic, sharp). Give them a name and a one-sentence personality description.
Your Weekend is a Blank Canvas
The goal isn't to master all 20 of these styles. The goal is to pick one that sparks a flicker of curiosity and just try it. Ditching the 9-to-5 mindset is about reclaiming your time and your mind for something other than productivity and problem-solving. It's about play, exploration, and the simple, human joy of making something with your own hands.
When you allow yourself to get lost in the flow of a new creative process, you’re not just making art; you’re building new connections in your brain. You’re becoming more observant, more intuitive, and more comfortable with ambiguity. You're rewiring yourself for a more creative and fulfilling life, both in and out of the office.
So, which style are you going to dive into this weekend? Will you be dripping paint like Pollock, capturing light like Monet, or finding beauty in a cracked teacup?
Share your choice in the comments below! We'd love to see what you create. And for more tips on unlocking your creative potential, be sure to subscribe to the blog.
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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