The Discipline of Empirical Observation
Inspiration occurs spontaneously, without intention. So it's likely to feel like something that happens to you, rather than something that you choose or plan to experience. Transcendence is the experience of something that is beyond usual, everyday occurrences. Transcending the ordinary and getting to the place of inspiration is nurtured through discipline. In this course we explore the discipline of practicing expressing our thoughts, ideas, insights and exploring our questions about our inner and outter worlds. Come with us on a journey, wander through your conscious and unconscious mind to find what lies just beyond the next breath.
about this course
The Creative Sketchbook is an exciting course aimed at any artist, designer, craftsperson, yoga teacher, dreamer, visionary who wishes to develop inspired skills to work in sketchbooks. While exploring different themes in this course we’ll cover ways to gather inspiring visual material and record it using a wide range of mediums and techniques.
The resulting work will form a unique and personal resource for future work which could be developed towards any fine art or craft route, or simply to enjoy as beautiful, colour-filled journals.
This course is ideal for beginners or more advanced students requiring a structured framework within which to be inspired, develop creative skills and good practice.
The Creative Sketchbook can be studied independently as a short course or you may find it the ideal way to supplement your knowledge and portfolio towards another course being studied elsewhere.
No previous art or design experience is required – we’ll guide you through every technique step by step and share with you everything you need to know to access your inner studio.
What will I make?
Sketchbook(s) filled with a variety of techniques including drawing, print, collage, stencilling. We will discuss what is the right sketch book and art supplies for you and where you can purchase them.
The sketch book may be your final products or you may decide to use the sketch book ideas to create larger works of art. It is a great place to try out new ideas and to explore a variety of techniques, art supplies, paper. methodologies and more.
How long does it take?
You can work at your own pace and take your time or complete the course more quickly if you prefer. Access is unlimited and the benefit of working online is the flexibility it offers. You can work wherever and whenever you like. The course will be offered live and after the live series the recordings will be available to be used any time.
Course Materials
The course contains videos in addition to the illustrated written course work with journaling prompts, meditative explorations and yoga experiences to access your inner creative voice. You can read the course material online, but as it’s also a PDF, you can choose to print a copy to read at your leisure, or save it to a tablet device such as an iPad to have beside you as you work.
It’s vital that you’re able to view the video workshops as these are a most important feature of the course.
Example Curriculum
The Art Sutras
It started with the diary for me. I started writing down my ideas, what happened in a day, how I felt, poems, doodles and little things that I collected along the way. A bus transfer, a concert ticket, a birthday card, a letter from my dad.
The diary turned into the journal and while studying Fashion at Ryerson I was introduced to the sketch book and have never been without one since. That was in 1986.
Later, as a yoga teacher and trainer of yoga teachers, I would discover that one of the reasons I understood the body the way that I did was from many years of life drawing. And the seed of this course was born as we introduced life drawing into our yoga teacher training programs.
Photography was another required Fashion course and I still love to work with multi-media in my art and a big part of marketing yoga in social media is the art of the selfie. So much more to tell you. I can't wait to share my stories and the tools that have been passed on to me over the years. I hope that you enjoy The Creative Sketch Book as much as I am enjoying making it.
Want to Hang Out with us more often....
I am obsessed with continuing education. If you are too you might enjoy some of the other courses we have created.