Yoga Day Retreat & Art Workshop



Two weeks ago I got to introduce a new and exciting project. I was asked to come along to an amazing yoga retreat to run an art wellbeing workshop. The retreat was at a beautiful house in Oxford surrounded by luxurious wilderness. I'm mainly going to be talking about my wellbeing art workshop in this post but stay tuned because I will be doing a whole blog post about the day with more photos!

In the morning we had a two hour session of yoga and a mediation walk. On this walk we all found something that we really connected with, this was what we used for the inspiration of our drawings. 
We sat under a tree with blow branches in the cool shade on our matts and blankets with oil pastels, coloured pencils and felt tips, it felt like we were in a little den. Drawing our natural pure objects that symbolised something to us, we chatted, drank flavoured waters and home made vegan brownies were passed around. 
As workshop leader I felt a pull to talk to the ladies about what they were drawing, they asked me questions and I answered, we spoke about how art can be relaxing and how its doesn't have to be this place of judgement and perfectionism. Art can be fun, art can be rewarding and art above all can and is personal. This workshop for me and the ladies was how to use art in way for you to rest your mind, to use a brush stroke as a way to smooth yourself. To us these drawings wasn't a mark on how well we can see an object and portray that on a page, it didn't need to be perfect, as we are not perfect. 

I was blown away with how much talent and open minded these ladies were. Some of them didn't seem very excited to be doing some drawing but they gave it a go, and I feel like they were the ones who got the most out of it. Everyone has the power to create, you don't need to be trained or be a ''professional artist/painter'' to produce meaningful and beautiful art. 

During this we also wrote around our drawings about what we were grateful for. Family was a key word all if not most of the ladies wrote down. I challenged this and asked them to dig deep and spicifuy who in their family are they truly grateful for and why, what does this person mean to you, what do they bring to your life? 

Once everyone had finished some of us shared our drawings and spoke about why our flower, leaf, whatever we had picked connected with us and what it was that we were grateful for. I was humbled by what the ladies said. They had really understood the activity set for them, taking it fully on board and really opening up to the group and themselves. It was such a powerful activity, meeting new people and having positive interesting conversations. Thats what I was grateful for that day, getting to do something I love with a open minded interesting group of people. If any of you ladies are reading this who was there, thank you. Also, big thank you to Ayesha Ali, the teacher of this amazing day for giving me this opportunity. 

Thank you for reading. I hope you found this post interesting and that you might give drawing or painting a try, just for fun and relaxation. Art is a powerful healing tool. See you soon. 

Vx


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