Integrating traditional and digital materials into artmaking may enhance the artistic process as it combines the benefits of a variety of media. Fergus Craik and Robert Lockhart’s (1972) levels of processing further suggests that processing images beyond the cursory perceptual level encourages comparison with past experiences and promotes the “extraction of meaning” (p. 675). For example, developing a drawing in pencil encourages free expression using a familiar, controlled tool. Scanning the image and using software to experiment with color allows the client to express the affective components of the artwork when fear of making mistakes may have prevented further development of the image. By spending greater time interacting with the image, its staying power and significance increase.

New media, such as video, can flexibly incorporate additional modalities such as music, narrative, dance, collage, photographs, animation, and performance art (Alders, Beck, Allen, and Mosinski, 2011). Photographic or video documentation similarly capitalizes on the element of time if it is used to record the progression of traditionally made art pieces. The series of images can be reviewed with clients at the end of a session or during termination (McCleod, 1999). The projective technique in which art therapists ask a client to imagine themselves inside their artwork can become a directive by combining photography, a scanned image of the client’s work, and photo editing software. Other examples of integrating traditional and digital materials include using digitally created images as elements of a collage, using photo-editing software to develop a stencil for screen-printing, using design software to create a zine, newsletter, slideshow, or portfolio of client art, and creating transparencies for darkroom negatives. Arthur Robbins (2000) noted, as art therapists we are aware of the inherent qualities of materials and our experience informs our impression of how someone may respond, “art materials can be used in a multitude of ways to promote an ever-adapting holding environment sensitive to a patient’s changing levels of ego integration, defenses, resistances, object representations, and the like” (p. 104). The use of art materials, whether digital, analog, or a combination of both, is only limited by our creativity and willingness to explore.