Objective: To study the intervention effect of group painting psychological counseling on academic stress of nursing students in higher vocational colleges. Methods: 20 nursing students with high academic pressure were randomly recruited from nursing major of a medical and health vocational college in Nanjing. They were given group painting psychological counseling once a week, 90 minutes each time, a total of 6 times, and questionnaire tests of learning pressure were conducted before and after the counseling. Results: The pre-test of total score and 7 dimentions of academic stress, including learning prospect pressure, were significantly higher than the scores of the post-test. The subjective experience of the study subjects further supported the results of the data analysis. Conclusion: Group painting psychological counseling can effectively improve the academic stress level of nursing students in higher vocational colleges.