'Expressive Colour' in Redcliffe Botanical Gardens, Feb 2014
Last weekend I spent a whole blissful day with eleven beautiful creative women, in my Expressive Colour Workshop. I only do these in-person classes a few times a year, so it is always so wonderful to make in-person connections with people who have followed my work and love what I have to share.
Held in the beautiful Redcliffe Botanical Gardens, with trees rustling, sun shining and colour all over our tables, we set to playing: Expressively.
I love to begin my classes with really playful techniques to get in the 'creative mode', by connecting with our bodies and our Art mediums. Enter: Fingerpainting
It's no coincidence that kids love fingerpainting. It's a freeing and expressive as it gets! Letting go is often the hardest part for us as adults, so it's lovely to celebrate our childhood roots and create freely without making a 'something'.
Here, we mixed layers of paint directly onto the surface with our fingers, to build up beautiful, expressive colour combinations. Some people found sticks in the garden bed to make expressive marks. Others etched into the paint with the back of a paintbrush. The theme here was playfulness.
I'm always amazed how everyone's work is so deliciously different to the next! I love that about my classes. People feel safe to explore.
As they hung up to dry, they reminded me of beautiful prayer flags, blowing in the wind.
Next we began to connect with our personal Colour Associations; exploring the personal stories and connections we each have with colour. Sharing our associations with each other is an extremely powerful and mind-blowing process in itself, because they highlight our personal experiences and dreams. We all have them and Art is a beautiful tool to bring them out.
Once we knew where we were, we could express where we wanted to go: Colourfully. We used our associations to create simple stories and narratives, using colour as our language.
This process enables us to explore our feelings into action and is the cornerstone of creating Expressive Artworks. It's essentially creating Art with intentional feeling. Very powerful, incredible stuff!
After enjoying a picnic lunch and a treasure hunt in nature, I went on to demonstrate some of my favourite collage and painting techniques with the group. I'd also brought along some of my Original Artworks to share with everyone, to show how these techniques can be applied in different ways.
Here, I am sharing some simple techniques for creating our own expressive-inspired handmade papers ...
And how to incorporate natural found objects, inks and collaged items in our paintings.
After the demo, we all spent the afternoon creating our own Artworks, while I floated around the space giving one-on-one attention to each person. This is why I like to keep my classes small; to share personalised guidance and support as we explore new and exciting creative territory together!
Here is a little gallery celebrating the beautiful fruits of our play ... Thank you to Sam Covey Photo for all the amazing photographs of our day!
New! Take this class online ...
In addition to my in-person workshops throughout the year (more dates being announced soon!), my Expressive Colour Workshop is now available as an in-depth, downloadable Expressive Colour Workbook!
Visit HERE for more info
