When a beloved animal dies, the world can suddenly feel strangely quiet and colorless. You may find yourself sitting in the spot where your dog curled up beside you, or glancing at the sunny patch of floor where your cat used to nap, unsure what to do with the wave of sadness that keeps rolling through. For many people, talking helps. For others, words feel thin compared to the depth of the bond they just lost. This is where art therapy for pet grief and simple creative expression can become a gentle, nonverbal way to stay connected, release emotion, and honor the life you shared through painting or drawing about loss and other creative practices.
At the same time, more families than ever are choosing cremation for both people and pets, which naturally raises questions about what to do with ashes, how to remember a companion in everyday life, and how to feel comfortable keeping ashes at home. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the U.S. cremation rate is projected to reach about 63.4% in 2025, more than double the burial rate, with cremation expected to account for more than 80% of dispositions by 2045. The Cremation Association of North America reports a similar long-term trend, noting that the national cremation rate reached about 61.8% in 2024 after decades of steady growth. For many grieving pet parents, that means navigating both practical choices about pet cremation and emotional questions about how to live with loss.
This article explores how drawing, painting, collage, and other simple art activities for adults can support grief after a pet dies—whether you are sketching on printer paper at the kitchen table or designing a small art piece that sits beside your pet urns for ashes on a shelf. You do not need any artistic skill. The focus is focusing on process not product, and on expression rather than perfection.
When Words Are Not Enough After a Pet Dies
Grief after pet loss is often underestimated by the outside world, which can make it hard to talk honestly about what you are feeling. You may sense that friends or co-workers expect you to “bounce back” quickly, even while your routines feel hollow without the animal who greeted you at the door, followed you from room to room, or slept at your feet.
Art offers a different kind of language and a form of nonverbal emotional processing. A smudge of charcoal, a swirl of paint, or a torn piece of colored paper can hold anger, guilt, tenderness, relief, or gratitude without you needing to explain any of it out loud. Overviews of art therapy note that it can help people manage grief by providing a safe outlet for complex emotions and redirecting them from painful rumination into focused creative work. The resource “What Is Art Therapy?” on Psychology.org describes how engaging the creative process supports insight and coping. The American Art Therapy Association explains that art therapy uses active art-making and psychological theory within a therapeutic relationship to support mental health and healing.
You do not have to work with a professional to benefit from this general idea. Simply making space for creative expression after pet death—even ten or twenty minutes at a time—can help you metabolize feelings that otherwise stay locked in your body.
How Art Therapy Supports Grief Processing
Research on art therapy and bereavement is still developing, but early studies suggest meaningful benefits. A review in palliative and bereavement settings has found that visual art–based interventions can reduce distress and support grief adaptation by giving people new ways to communicate their inner experience. Other work in expressive arts programs links creative processes with improved emotional expression, a stronger sense of connection to others, and fresh avenues for meaning-making after loss.
For someone who is grieving a pet, the heart of this work is simple. First, art therapy for pet grief helps you externalize what you feel so it is no longer only inside you; you can literally see your grief on the page. Second, it creates a visible reminder of your pet’s place in your life—a sketch of their favorite sleeping position, a painted silhouette on a small canvas, or a cluster of symbols that only you fully understand. Third, it offers brief windows of absorption and calm when the rest of the day feels heavy; time moves differently when your hands are busy, and that can bring real relief.
You might, for example, notice a shift in your breathing as you trace the same outline of your pet’s ears over and over, or feel a little more grounded after you spend half an hour building a collage or memory boards project that holds photos, ticket stubs from trips you took together, and fragments of handwritten notes about your favorite habits and moments.
Getting Started With Creative Expression at Home
Many adults feel intimidated by the idea of “art.” You might hear a voice in your head insisting, “I’m not creative,” or remember a critical comment from a childhood art class. For grief work, that kind of judgment is not just unhelpful—it misses the point entirely. In this setting, you are not trying to impress anyone. You are creating a private space where your relationship with your pet can continue to unfold.
A gentle way to begin is by choosing very low-pressure materials such as ordinary printer paper, a basic sketchbook, a pen, colored pencils, markers, or inexpensive watercolors. Set a timer for a short, specific amount of time and give yourself permission to be messy. One evening, you might experiment with repeating a simple shape that reminds you of your pet, like paw prints or the curve of their tail. On another day, you might draw places where you spent time together, like the couch, the park, or the front step. On days when realistic images feel too hard, you can simply paint or color abstract shapes that match your mood, letting your hand move faster or slower as the feelings shift.
If you have chosen pet cremation urns and are still adjusting to the reality of the urn in your home, sketching the urn from different angles can help you slowly become more familiar with it. You can draw it surrounded by symbols of your pet’s personality—favorite toys, a favorite blanket, a collar—and notice what memories surface. Some families like to place these small drawings beside their pet urns for ashes, turning a shelf into a more personalized memorial corner that combines handmade art with the permanence of a cremation vessel.
Simple Drawing and Painting About Loss
When you focus on painting or drawing about loss, it can help to choose one very small task at a time so you do not feel overwhelmed. You might decide that today you are only going to draw your pet’s eyes from memory, and tomorrow you will paint the color of their fur as closely as you can remember. On a different day, you might give yourself the assignment of using color alone to express how grief feels; perhaps you fill a page with dense, dark strokes, and then add a few lighter areas to represent moments of ease or gratitude.
These exercises are not about accuracy. They are about letting your mind and body linger with your pet in a structured, time-limited way, instead of feeling ambushed by grief at random moments. Over time, you may find that this kind of focusing on process not product makes the hardest emotions feel more touchable.
Collage, Memory Boards, and Mixed Media
Collage work and memory boards are especially helpful forms of simple art activities for adults who feel stuck when faced with a blank page. Instead of drawing from scratch, you gather materials that already exist: printed photos of your pet, magazine images that evoke their energy, scraps of paper in colors that remind you of their collar or favorite blanket, ticket stubs, dried flowers, or a copy of the adoption paperwork.
You can arrange these elements on a single page, in a notebook, or on a piece of poster board. Around and between them, you might write nicknames, inside jokes, or short phrases like “You were my morning person” or “Thank you for every walk.” Some people like to create a sequence of pages, each capturing a different chapter: early days, routines, illness, saying goodbye, and life now.
If your pet has been cremated, you might design the collage around a small shelf or tabletop where their urn, paw print, or cremation jewelry rests. Funeral.com’s guide “Pet Urns for Ashes: A Complete Guide for Dog and Cat Owners” offers practical information on different types of pet urns for ashes, including photo urns and engravable options that pair beautifully with mixed-media displays like these. In that way, your collage or memory boards become part of a larger memorial space rather than a separate project tucked into a drawer.
Using Color and Symbol in Grief
One of the quiet strengths of creative expression after pet death is that it does not have to make literal sense to anyone else. Grief is often full of contradictions: love and anger, relief and regret, numbness and overwhelming feeling. Working with using color and symbol in grief gives you a way to hold these opposites side by side.
You might choose one color for the days that feel heavy and another for brief moments of lightness or connection. You could draw a doorway to represent transitions, a bridge to symbolize connection across time, or a nest to evoke safety. Some people find comfort in repeating a specific symbol—like a heart, a star, or a paw print—across many pages and many weeks, watching how size, color, or placement change as their grief slowly shifts.
If your pet’s ashes are in a discreet urn tucked away because you are not sure yet about keeping ashes at home, gentle art experiments can help you explore your own comfort level. You might sketch different possible locations for the urn—on a bookshelf, near a plant, beside a favorite photo—and then sit quietly with each drawing to notice what happens in your body. An article like “Cremation Urns, Pet Urns, and Cremation Jewelry: A Gentle Guide to Keeping Ashes Close” on Funeral.com walks through practical choices around cremation urns for ashes, small cremation urns, and cremation jewelry, which you can then “try on” visually in your sketchbook as you consider what to do with ashes in your own home. Seeing these scenarios on paper may make your preferences clearer.
Turning Creative Projects into Lasting Memorials
Over time, your drawings, paintings, and collages can evolve into creative projects as memorials—tangible, handmade tributes that sit alongside urns, framed photos, or cremation necklaces as part of your home memorial. Some families decorate a small canvas or wooden plaque with their pet’s name and dates, using colors and motifs that match the urn they have chosen from collections such as Engravable Pet Urns for Ashes or Pet Cremation Urns for Ashes. Others design a series of small images—one for each favorite memory—and display them in a grid near a pet cremation urn or a small keepsake urn from Funeral.com’s range of small pet cremation urns for ashes.
If you wear cremation jewelry, such as a pendant that holds a tiny portion of ashes or a fur clipping, your art might explore what it means to carry that connection with you every day. You might paint the outline of a figure wearing a necklace and then fill the pendant shape with images that represent the comfort it brings: a warm color, a favorite landscape, or the feeling of a steady heartbeat. Funeral.com’s article “Cremation Jewelry 101: What It’s Made and Who It’s Right For” offers a practical, compassionate overview of how these pieces are constructed and how they fit alongside urns rather than replacing them. Your artwork can become a visual diary of how you use these tangible items to stay connected.
Integrating Art, Memorial Choices, and Future Planning
For some people, creative work begins around the time of diagnosis or major illness, long before any decision about euthanasia or cremation has been made. For others, it starts later, as they sort through ashes, look at urn options, and think about what kind of remembrance they want for themselves or other family members in the future.
Because cremation is now so common, you may find yourself making layered choices over time: deciding between burial and cremation, choosing between pet urns and scattering, wondering whether a water burial or home garden memorial might be meaningful, or considering portable options like cremation jewelry. Small decorative projects—like painting a stone for the garden where you scattered some ashes, or creating a simple line drawing to keep alongside a small cremation urn—can help you explore these choices gently. As you read guides on Funeral.com about pet urns, cremation urns, cremation jewelry, and keeping ashes at home, you can sketch different scenarios and notice which ones bring a sense of peace.
In this way, art therapy for pet grief becomes not only a form of comfort but also a quiet decision-making tool. Your artwork reflects back to you the memorial options that feel most aligned with your values and the relationship you had with your pet.
When to Seek an Art Therapist for Extra Support
Not everyone needs or wants formal art therapy. For many people, private drawing or painting sessions at home provide enough support. There are times, however, when when to seek art therapist becomes an important question.
You might consider looking for a credentialed art therapist if your grief feels completely frozen and months have passed without any emotional movement, if you are overwhelmed by guilt, anger, or traumatic images related to how your pet died, if you have a history of mental health challenges and this loss has intensified symptoms, or if you find yourself avoiding every reminder of your pet, including photos, toys, or urns. Reaching out for professional help is not a sign that you are “failing” at grieving; it is a sign that you are taking your pain seriously.
Art therapists combine creative processes with clinical training, which means they can help you pace difficult memories, work with images that feel frightening or intrusive, and connect this loss with earlier experiences that may be echoing now. Some clinicians specialize in animal-related loss or work directly with veterinary clinics and pet hospice teams. The American Art Therapy Association and many regional organizations provide directories where you can search for trained providers in your area. If your grief feels unbearable or you are having thoughts of self-harm, it is important to contact a crisis hotline, trusted doctor, or emergency services right away; art and creativity can be deeply supportive, but they are not a replacement for urgent mental health care.
Creating Space for Grief, Love, and Ongoing Connection
Losing a pet reshapes daily life in countless small ways: the silence at feeding times, the empty spot on the bed, the leash by the door that no longer gets used. Making art will not erase that ache or change the fact that a bright, living presence is gone. What it can do is offer you pockets of time where grief has somewhere to go, where your hands are busy, and where your heart has a quiet, respectful place to speak.
Whether you are experimenting with simple line drawings, exploring color on watercolor paper, building collage or memory boards, or designing a small canvas to sit beside your pet urns for ashes, you are doing something deeply significant. You are honoring a relationship that mattered. You are allowing yourself to feel, to remember, and to stay in conversation with the love that remains.
If you find that creative work makes you curious about other ways to remember your pet—through pet cremation urns, pet keepsake urns, cremation jewelry, or other memorial tributes—Funeral.com offers both compassionate guides and thoughtfully curated collections to help you explore those options at your own pace. You do not have to rush. You can move slowly, one brushstroke or small decision at a time, as you shape a memorial life that feels true to your bond.
