Contemplative Drawing: Inspire Your Art-making, Refresh Your Process

Contemplative Drawing: Inspire Your Art-making, Refresh Your Process

What does it feel like to be in the moment with your art materials?

This class is for anyone who wants to investigate strategies to refresh their approach to making art through mindful focus. You are invited to let go of worries about making a “bad” drawing and expand into opening a space where your lines, marks, and brushstrokes lead the way. A path of discovery where mind/heart, eye, hand, and materials work together prompting our filters and assumptions to fall away.

Classes will approach art-making from a variety of perspectives including how chance plays a role in decision-making, how our assumptions show up, how creating boundaries frees us up. Students will use a variety of materials such as india ink, paint, and charcoal to engage the senses and have lots of fun! This class is for those who want to discover ways to approach art-making as well as those who want ways to invigorate their practice. Come explore your relationship to making art in a relaxed and inspiring environment!

CLICK ON THE CLASS TO GO TO THE REGISTRATION LINK FOR THAT DATE

Prices

Member: $55

Non-Member: $62

Class 1, May 11: Create a drawing that enables you to feel the shift from left to right brain. Then use that expanded mind-frame in a direct observation brush drawing. 

Class 2, May 18: With the artwork of ancient Chinese art philosophers leading the way, explore ideas and methods that take you out of yourself in ways that also lead you inward. 

Class 3, June 1: Discover the role of chance and how letting go of control and accepting open-endedness can offer ways to support your art-making. 

Class 4, June 8: Stretch your visual boundaries using all your senses and a variety of materials. Delve into the excitement of expressing a personal interpretation free of judgement or labeling. 

All materials provided for in class use

Ages 15 and up

Instructor: Paula Harrison

Paula is a local painter and energy therapist at ReikiArts. She was formerly a public school art teacher and has taught painting, drawing, and sculpture to all ages in a variety of venues. Her philosophy combines personal vision and creative process with experimentation. Paula values the energy of spontaneity in artwork, and has found working in this way creates an appealing directness. Being a painter is a practice in mindfulness; she learned along the way that images are a means to access experiences of awareness and consciousness that can only be accessed non-verbally. She believes that creating images that are open-ended enough to allow dialogue, to allow personal meaning to develop, is a great joy.  

Paula taught art for twenty years in a public school system in Massachusetts. Her work is in many private collections.