Awaken To Place

Only $67.00

 

What if you could calm your mind and strengthen your focus, as you express your inner and outer landscapes?

In this course, I invite you to cultivate connection and nurture your relationship to the world and yourself as you awaken to the landscape. Taking inspiration from your experiences in nature, you will explore nature-based colour sense, mark making, personal motifs and writing. Your personal voice will sing from your journal pages as you learn to combine watercolour, Neocolor II pastels, watercolour pencil crayons, pearlescent paints, collage and pen work.

I’m passionate about spending time exploring and appreciating the ocean and mountain landscape that surrounds my home on Vancouver Island. The healing properties of land and the mindfulness practices I cultivate when in nature, bring me both a sense of well-being and inspiration for my artwork. In this course, I will share my local landscape and a detailed exploration of my journaling processes with you as we make deeply personal watercolour and mixed media pages.

Tend to your spirit as we use mindfulness combined with mixed media practices to explore what it means to awaken to place.

 

Class Is Open!

Only $67.00

{ LIFETIME ACCESS • DOWNLOADABLE VIDEOS }

 

What we will learn together…

Warmup lesson : Awaken

What happens when we experience a familiar landscape with a fresh perspective? How do we experience this place - using our bodies, hearts and minds - on this particular day, in this moment? In the warmup, I invite you to go outside and explore your chosen landscape using a mindfulness practice that engages your senses. Orienting and connecting to the present moment, you will gather inspiration in the form of colour, textures, patterns, along with your words and feelings. While connecting to nature we are also connecting ourselves and paying attention to our own needs, thoughts, and desires. I will provide a worksheet for you to record your observations. This time you spend in the landscape will be the essential foundation of your art journaling pages in this course and hopefully the beginnings of a life-long practice.

 

lesson 1 : New territory

Filled with fresh inspiration from our warm-up, we will dive into exploring new territory that will develop and deepen your artistic voice. You will choose a personal colour palette inspired by your landscape and then work with it to develop your mark-making techniques and begin building a repertoire of personal motifs. Playing in a sketchbook or on loose watercolour sheets, you will discover techniques in watercolour, Neocolour II pastels, watercolour pencil crayon, pen and paint pen that will be the basis of your journaling process. This is an opportunity to bravely explore and express your voice.

 

Lesson 2 : Tiny Wonders

It’s easy to underestimate tiny things but there is tremendous power in ‘micro practices’. In this lesson, we will paint three small watercolour journal pages inspired by the land and using our discoveries from the warm-up and lesson one. I will share how I face the blank page and then mindfully pay attention to how my materials are interacting on the page as I paint and draw. We will practice being open to ‘what is’ versus what we expect to create. I will show you how to combine loose expression with more refined elements, such as personal motifs and writing to pull the compositions together. Your ongoing artistic growth will come from regularly returning to these tiny wonders as a creative practice.

 

Lesson 3 : Present Places

This lesson includes painting two unique pages - one in a watercolour journal and one in a mixed media journal. We will focus on layering our water media, developing collage papers using gesso, arranging balanced compositions, using our personal marks and motifs. The first page is a gently layered landscape with seaweed, driftwood and words woven in paint, pens and Neocolour II water-soluble wax pastels. In the second page I combine collage papers and a drawing of a favourite West Coast tree and I’ll show you how to use writing as a design element in a bold, minimal composition.

This lesson also includes a flip-through of some of some of my favourite journal pages, discussing both inspiration and techniques.

 

Bonus Lesson : CONCERTINA JOURNAl

Create your own tiny, hand-painted concertina journal from watercolour paper. Learn how to paint, fold, and stitch a sweet little journal that you can use for collecting sketches and thoughts from your nature walks.

 

Class Is Open!

Only $67.00

{ LIFETIME ACCESS • DOWNLOADABLE VIDEOS }

 

Who’s This Class For?

This class is for any nature-lover who wants to develop or reinvigorate a personal art journaling practice. I believe the landscape provides endless opportunities for connection, inspiration and growth. Through your practice you will awaken your powerful creative voice. If you want to feel grounded, connected and desire to enliven your practice, please join me for this nourishing class.

 

Class Is Open!

Only $67.00

{ LIFETIME ACCESS • DOWNLOADABLE VIDEOS }

 

HERE ARE JUST A FEW EXAMPLES OF NICOLE’S WORK

 

SUPPLIES LIST

 

I highly recommend purchasing new supplies after you’ve done the warm-up lesson in which you connect to your place. I’m happy to share all my favourite colours and tools but it’s important to this class that you choose colours that reflect your landscape and your emotions. It’s a great idea to build your supplies over time so that you don’t purchase things you don’t ever use. I often buy paints, pens and pastels individually, adding new ones each year and replacing favourites. When it comes to brushes, collage papers and extras, I’m a huge advocate for using what you have and what you love.

 

PAPERS

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WATERCOLOUR PAINTS

* Please choose colours that work for you and your landscape.

DERWENT WATERCOLOUR PENCIL CRAYONS

  • Prussian Blue

  • Smalt Blue

  • Indigo

  • Blue Grey

  • Sky Blue

  • Cedar Green

  • Olive Green

  • Water Green

  • Copper Beech

  • Golden Brown

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NEOCOLOR II WATER-SOLUBLE WAX PASTELS

  • Jade

  • Olive Green

  • Greenish Blue

  • Payne’s Grey

  • Night Blue

  • Light Blue

  • Light Cobalt Blue Hue

  • Golden Ochre

  • White

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BRUSHES

  • 3/4” flat brush - Opus Art Supplies

  • #12 flat brush - Plain One Stroke Donna Dewberry

  • Synthetic round watercolour brushes: #14, #6, #10, #1, #0, #00 - Opus Art Supplies

  • Chinese round goat hair brush

  • Synthetic watercolour brushes: #6 round, #2 filbert, #1 rigger - WonderForest

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PENS

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OTHER SUPPLIES

  • 2 water containers

  • cotton rag

  • Liquitex Basics white acrylic gesso

  • glue stick

  • scissors

  • Exacto knife

  • collage papers and words from books

  • Scotch 3M washi tape or painter’s tape

  • small bulldog or binder clips

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BONUS LESSON ADDITIONAL SUPPLIES

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