Feel Good Arty Saturdays

Hi Everyone

This week I would like to introduce you to some creative pathways to your very own happiness!  At Wild at Art we know that making art makes YOU feel good and helps you to build and reinforce your Happy Habits! If you are a practicing art maker you will have already experienced your Happy Hormones being triggered in a few ways as you make and create !

Here’s a short neurobiological guide to your body and your art :

The joy of anticipation! That wonderful “ feel-good hormone ” dopamine surges in anticipation before you actually start your hands on art making, your brain and body know that you are about to experience a reward trigger, this can help you to concentrate and to maintain motivation as you focus on your art making just by signing up to a workshops at WAA you can start to feel good!

At the same time when we actually engage in hands on activities, there are specific parts of the brain that are affected and this is thought to increase  the chemical messenger serotonin that acts as our mood stabilizer.  That in turn helps with the stress hormone, cortisol, which as we already know, is public health enemy number one !

I chatted a few weeks ago about ways that elevated cortisol levels interfere with learning and memory, as well lowering our immune function, it can elevate blood pressure and can lead to heart disease... But guess what ?  Art making can actually reduce our cortisol levels as we engage in self-regulating activities such as doodling, drawing, making mandalas and other  kinds of art making that takes us to what we call a FLOW state !

Last of all our cuddle hormone oxytocin is triggered when we are in a ‘herd’ and trust is formed, so come and join the Wild at Art ‘herd’ and enjoy your oxytocin boost and your endorphin rush as you laugh, chat and make friends in a community and atmosphere of fun and creativity !

So you see there are many reasons to come and enjoy our Feel Good Arty Saturday workshops each month………….they are very very good for your health !  

Why not come and sign up for the marvellous Geli Plate printing workshops with Jules white on the 12th October.

Its a half day workshop and it will give you a fabulous flavour of the play and experimentation inherent in printmaking, the what ifs and "I wonders" of making art ! This workshop is a fun way to make images and if you are an Art Journaler then you can make backgrounds for your journal pages as well. 

As Jules says :

Gelli printing takes mixed media art to the next level. creating your own one-off and unique work. You will be layering colours and including multiple textures. There is not a right or wrong way to create these works, and I will guide you through the process. Let your imagination run wild, and come and explore the fabulous art of Gelli printing.

Saturday 12th October 

10.00-12.30

$400 per person inc all materials
Register now with me on

wildatartweekly@gmail.com

Jules is the Elementary Art Teacher at Carmel International School, she has also taught in Shanghai and Bangkok, her classroom is fabulous and her approach is accessible to everyone no matter what your starting point ! Do come and join us for this Feel Good Saturday ! 

Artfully Yours

from

Katie 

The Iceberg.........

Hi Everyone Welcome to Wild at Art news;  This week I'd like to talk a little bit about one of my favourite metaphorical images: the Iceberg. I use the Iceberg as an image to explain the unconscious mind and its relationship to the conscious mind. Many of us spend much of our waking hours up there in cognitive brain, which represents that small part of the iceberg visible above the surface of the water. Whereas down under the surface, the most powerful part, the unconscious mind, remains that unseen huge mass below the water: the place of our memories, feelings and thoughts that are just out of conscious awareness. Everything we have seen or smelled, dreamed or worried about, every muscle memory and pre conscious experience is stored in that deep deep filing system!

The exciting part, is that right at the water line of our metaphoric iceberg is where we imagine and dream. We could say that our imagination is rather like a membrane through which processes happening in the unconscious mind come into conscious awareness. Our dreams and our art making practice allow access to those deeper realms. As Art Therapist Sean McNiff says "Depth is on the Surface"! Imagination is a slightly elusive word isn't it,  perhaps nearly as difficult to define succinctly as the word love. ……it’s our place of possibility, our playground of what ifs…..its how we form new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not yet present to the senses……..its the seat of our creativity. Next week at the studio we see the launch of two exciting initiatives. Not just one, but TWO Katie’s who bring you some powerful and magical techniques to lead you straight to the seat of your creativity, would you like to safely take some diving lessons and discover ways to access the messages and stories which are just below the surface? Come and reconnect with your own imaginal realm....the place where all is possible and we can bring something previously unseen into reality.

Creative Depth Coach Katie Larson bring us “Vision-Quest: A Conscious Journey”. This is a 4-week  deep-dive into all aspects of the self. We will meet on 4 consecutive Tuesday evenings in September to discover how to create visual maps of our conscious experiences. Katie will help us to devise a translation dictionary so that we can reconnect with our symbolic-world and we will also create a card deck that captures aspects of US! Through art making, we will capture exactly what we have been longing to know….   Vision-Quest: A Conscious Journey Articulating the self through creativity brought to you by the wise and insightful Katie Larson 6.30 - 9.00pm Starting next Tuesday 3rd  -24th September ( 4 x weeks) $1,500 for 4 classes inc all materials Follow your inner artist on a Vision-Quest deep inside yourself. Explore your unconscious and discover the colours, patterns, and symbols buried within. Play with mixed media--paint, pencils, pastels, and collage--and bring visual form to your non-verbal knowings. Create a dictionary to bridge the gap between your verbal and symbolic world. Design a card deck showing the wide spectrum of your persona, and create beautiful 3D models of "The Big Picture" (the universe as you know it) and "The Small Picture" (your whole self as you know it).

The next " Intro to Art Journaling" course starts on Wednesday: Find your Voice Introduction to Visual Art Journaling 6.00-8.30pm Wednesdays 4th, 11th, 18th, 25th Sept 9th, 16th Oct Register with me on wildatartweekly@gmail.com Exploring personal stories through art making can help us to reframe challenges, develop new perspectives and articulate our inner world. Come and use your art-making to listen inside! Working on personal themes you will be guided to experience mixed media art journaling. It can be the start of a transformational journey as you uncover insights and find ways to let your inner voice show you the way. " One of the best gifts I ever gave myself was signing up for your art journaling course last year. Highly recommend!!! "  says Ilene Appel Levy

I look forwards to greeting you very soon at the Wild at Art Door! Artfully Yours from Katie