Nature is my Greatest Teacher
week 1 • Art of Flow at home
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Day 1 Inviting Calm Do you have any view of nature from a window or balcony, or any plants in your home? If you have a garden or balcony you could do this outside. If you want to, you could look at a photograph of a place you love in nature or nature images on the web. Sitting or standing as you please, enjoy some deep belly breaths, slow down and and just take a moment to settle... look around. What do you see? Take some time to widen your perception. What is the light like? Are there shadows? Does anything attract your attention? Do any words, thoughts or feelings arise? What are your hopes and wishes? You might like to take a photograph or sit down and respond by drawing, writing, painting or any form of expression… it could be abstract... Todays prompt is wide open, there is no right or wrong way, it's not good or bad. Allow yourself to just have a go.... Remember to share photos of your response and process to our facebook group and on instagram use #artofflowathome and have fun! "The modern illusion concerning painting.......is that the artist is a creator. Rather s/he is a receiver. What seems like creation is the act of giving form to what s/he has received" John Burger 2001 
Day 2
Blind contour... feel it with your eyes You will need paper and pencil, pen, marker or crayon. Choose any natural object; it could be a tree, leaf, flower, branches, vine. Something with a lot of detail is ideal. Your own hand is also perfect for this. Sit in a quiet place or maybe play some soothing music to help focus. We will be drawing without looking at the paper. If you're right handed place your object on your left and your paper around to your right. If you're left handed do the opposite. Make sure you can see your object and not your paper. Focus your attention near the centre of the object and place your pencil in the middle of your page. Now we are ready. Soooooo slowly, with a continuous, descriptive, sensitive line, begin to move your eyes and your pencil at exactly the same rate. It can help to imagine that you are a tiny little ant crawling all over and around your natural object. These drawings are all about the experience, not so much about the result, although I often love the pure quality in the line, the honesty and sensitivity (sometimes hilarity). It is vital not to look at the paper! It can be very tempting…you might ask yourself “why do I want to look at the paper?” See what happens if you resist the urge to peek. The more you do this, the easier it gets and the more enjoyable it becomes. Try to really SLOW it down… do a second blind contour even slower… Notice how your line can move across the surface contours and details as well as around the outer edges. You could set an alarm for 10 minutes and really take the time to SEE MORE. Allow yourself to enjoy the sensation. We will revisit this (one of my favourite things) again a bit later. I hope you enjoy the humour and the freedom this exercise has to offer! Remember to share photos of your response and process to our facebook group or on instagram use #artofflowathome "Creativity takes courage" Henri Matisse 
Day 3 Design & crop Choose a leaf or small branch of leaves that interest you. They may have beautiful colouration, veins or shapes. Fill your page or frame in the most interesting or unusual way (draw, paint, collage, photograph, photoshop, or use any medium you like) To create strong composition allow your design to touch two or more edges of your page or frame (cropping the leaf or branch). This could be really simple (a pattern of shapes) or it could be full of intricate detail. Hope you have a beautiful day! Link to our facebook group For instagram #artofflowathome "Every leaf speaks to me, fluttering from the autumn tree" Emily Bronte 
Day 4 Negative Space... shift your focus, feel the spaces A moment to understand negative space... We usually perceive things; like a tree, leaf, face or hand and identify them using words. Negative spaces are shapes with no names. Seeing the spaces between the things can be a valuable tool for seeing in a new way. Look at your hand, spread your fingers and notice the spaces between your fingers. Look closely at the shape of one of them. really focus on the nature of the shape of the space, not the finger. Does it feel different? Does it feel a little dreamy? How many spaces can you see? Trees are perfect for seeing the negative spaces, the shapes between the branches. Draw a square or rectangle frame on your page. Slowly, with a similar sensitivity as we used for blind contours start to draw (or paint) the shapes of the spaces between the branches. Let your lines touch the edges of your frame filling it with a design of shapes. You can paint or shade the shapes and leave the branches empty. Extra idea... you can prepare a page by covering the whole space with colours, then looking at your tree, search for the negative spaces between the branches, mark the shapes and paint the shapes only (leaving the tree your original base of colours). This is one of my absolute favourites. I hope you love it too. Link our facebook group For instagram #artofflowathome "Do not be afraid of mistakes. There are no mistakes" Miles Davis 
Day 5 Nature Mandala Create a mandala using any natural objects (leaves, seeds, flowers, sticks, pebbles, shells, sand, crystals, dried beans etc) You might like to go for a collecting walking meditation (if you are going out for walks) or you might have collections in your home already (sometimes it's fun with food) or you could draw, paint or collage your mandala. As you look around and start collecting the objects you will use, see if you can move slowly and quietly. Try not to talk and allow this whole process to be meditative. Clear a space on a table or the floor where you can build your mandala with a slow and calm focus. Starting, either in the centre or the outside edge of a circle place your first piece and radiate in or out using symmetry... it can be as big or small as you like... (if you're doing this with children or a friend, it could be a collaboration) Consciously focus on what you are doing in this moment as you create your nature mandala. Bring your awareness to the objects, how they feel, their colours... and enjoy! Art of Flow at home Facebook group For instagram #artofflowathome “Openness…aliveness…sensitivity…allows creativity to take possession of you” Osho 
Day 6 Meditation Just a moment of time out... You may like to sit comfortably or lie down or walk... For 5 or 10 minutes or more be in silence or listen to meditation music or a use a guided meditation that you like. Here is a link on spotify to one of my favourite meditation tunes You might feel like continuing by creating an image or a word or thought or feeling... in absolutely any medium. Art of Flow at home Facebook group For instagram #artofflowathome "Sacred space is an absolute necessity for anybody today. You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen." Joseph Campbell 
Day 7 Feeling Form To prepare for today, you will need an egg or a rounded shell, a piece of fruit or a gumnut or seedpod.... any natural object that is roundish and curved. Begin in a darkish room, illuminate your object from one side with a single light source. This could be a desk light or sunlight shining onto one side of your object. We need to create a beautiful and simple shadow on our subject. This is great for feeling the form, watching the light gently curve into the shadows. This is an exercise in tonal variation. If you are painting, keep it simple by using one colour and white. Soft pastels or oil pastels are ideal and if you're drawing with pencil it's important to draw tonally, not using too much line. If you feel inspired to try this with multiple colours.... go for it! Art of Flow at home Facebook group And on instagram use #artofflowathome “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” Mary Lou Cook |