To help support everyone cope with the challenges of living in confinement with the COVID-19 crisis, I created a series of online webinars titled “PENCIL WALKING” – creative mindful activities aimed to help calm the mind. Since we’re confined to our homes, Calmness is a superpower because it’s the best cure to anxiety helping us remain resilient. Everyday for one week (13-17 April) from 6-6:30pm I guided participants through straight forward & fun activities helping them access a state of relaxed focus.
Every session underwent a 3 part structure.
First we a started with a short guided breathing exercise to help calm the mind.
Second, I guided everyone to follow a focused drawing activity.
Then finally, everyone was invited to take a moment to reflect and harvest some of their learnings from the experience. This allowed them to recognise and appreciate their inner strengths.
Approach
I used mindfulness-based art therapy (inspired by Dr. Laury Rappaport) as an approach to improve our understanding of our inner self and emotions. Creativity as the gateway to the inner self. Engaging in a creative process of making art as a way to explore the inner self. With a focus on self-care, personal growth, and wellbeing, the benefits of this approach helps lower distress levels and improve quality of life.
List of activities:
Session 1: Take my pencil for a walk – We will bring our full awareness to the movement of the pencil on the page by connecting it to our breathing.
Session 2: Around the park with my pencil – By focusing on a single object we will travel across its silhouette.
Session 3: Pencil hears a sound – We will explore how we might visualise different sounds.
Session 4: Finding balance with my pencil – We will create charming images by drawing simple structured patterns.
Session 5: My pencil leads the way – We will travel through imaginary bumpy and twisting paths.
What some of the participants had to say about their experience:
All sessions were happily supported by our dear friend Bruno Selun from Kumquat Consult who shared his Zoom channel with us. Thank you for saving us Bruno! And thank you to Anuschka Ruge for her enthusiastic support.
Please sign up to our Creativity lab meetup to join in our activities
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance
– Aristotle