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hen I was young I was unlucky enough to win a colouring-in competition, my picture was perfect, not one bit of colour outside the lines. I really enjoyed drawing and painting but now I had to make all my pictures perfect! If I felt they were not perfect or I did not get recognised for my excellent work, I felt "not good enough" I am not alone with this experience, most people I know do not feel good enough.

And so I ask you.......
Do you remember when you could play and create for hours and you were totally with yourself and time meant n-o-t-h-i-n-g? Do you remember when you were free and and you could paint and invent whatever you wanted to and.... outside the lines .. before you were taught "how to paint in proportion and correctly?"

Unless you were fortunate enough to have an adult with you who understood that the "freedom of expressing yourself has a lot of wisdom" then you would have received the message to constrict yourself, conform, compromise, suppress.... which is the message such a lot of us received and consequently we lost the freedom of creative self-expression and that does not allow us to be who we truly are.

In the past I have taught children to paint for the sake of play and for the fun of inventing, which meant they never had to produce something for approval or acceptance. If children are taught to paint in a more traditional way it would mean they would need special talent and would have to follow rules to make images realistic. This way is limited, with no room to invent, dream or express themselves. The children were given no rules, they were not expected to produce a realistic or perfectly proportioned painting, there was no pressure of right or wrong, good or bad. With no technique or needing to achieve something, they were free to tune into whatever they were experiencing .. they could "feel and paint". They knew that it was impossible to make a mistake, they felt accepted for who they were and not for what they did.

And these are the same principles, with no rules, that we use in the adult classes.

Do you think that it is possible you could recapture the sense of play and fun you once had prior to conditioning? The answer is "yes" and you have to start by giving yourself permission.

Whether you know how to paint or not, imagine as an adult being given the opportunity to paint for the sake of play, the fun of inventing and never having to produce something for approval or acceptance. Give children paints and paper and watch the images pour out.....as an adult you can experience this also.

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f we really want to be free when we paint we have to let go of control. To do this we have to let go of how we want the painting to look, let go of expectations, wanting it to look a certain way, even needing to like it.

But there can be a voice that says.... "I want to let go of control but I also want to keep my control.....I want to know what's going to happen next and if it will look good.......and then I'll let go of control!

Two important words here are Spontaneity and Trust. Spontaneity works because you can't control it and we develop trust when we discover that letting go of control and taking risks is not really that scary, after all, it's just a piece of paper with paint on it!

There is another important word that we use .... PLAY. We want to recover our courage to play and to do that we have to let go of judgements, expectations, wants, needs and be prepared to invent, dare, take risks and have fun.

•   No experience is required
•   No painting technique is taught
•   No mistakes ever happen, so there is nothing to fix
•   No product, no progress or goals, no place to get to
•   No analysing or searching for meaning
•   No pressure to perform or produce
•   No control needed just moving spontaneously without a plan
•   No judgements, no right or wrong, good or bad, ugly or beautiful
•   No comments or critiques are ever made about your painting

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n the painting process we discover that the way you paint will expose the way you live. It awakens us to our ideals and beliefs and the old thought patterns and habits that keep us stuck and in fear of the past and the future and not being good enough.

Gentle Breath Meditation and how this is simply a tool for re-connection.

How the meditation and the painting process are useful tools
to expand the level of awareness in your body and its innate intelligence,
and assist you to become consciously present.

Everything is energy and therefore everything is because of energy. That there are only two types of energy, divine energy and that which is not divine energy.

The important difference between the spirit and the soul.

Learn to observe and not absorb ours and others emotions and stories.

Learn how we use questions to keep the brush moving
when we have blocks or judgements.

Develop and learn to trust your clairsentience and intuition.

How the important aspect of love is self-love.