Creative Wellbeing Retreats at Devon Sculpture Park

02/04/2020

There is growing evidence that spending time in nature is essential to our wellbeing. From the pureness of the oxygen we breathe, to the sounds of wildlife, the visual beauty of a flower coming into bloom, each sense is uniquely awakened when we spend time re-connecting with our natural surroundings, bringing with it an innate sense of peace and connection with ourselves and the earth.

Alongside this, further research suggests that ‘the act of creating’ is equally important to our sense of wellbeing, spending just 45 minutes engaged in a creative activity lowers the bodies stress hormone significantly.

At Creative Minds we wholeheartedly believe in the power of both art and nature to transform our sense of wellbeing. We wanted to encompass this in our offering for 2020, and so we have partnered with the stunning Devon Sculpture Park, the UK’s leading smaller scale rewilding project and environmental art centre, to offer a monthly Creative Wellbeing Retreat, the first of which is planned for March 11^th.

Our Creative Wellbeing Retreats will provide the perfect combination of nature, art and creative expression for maximum impact on our wellbeing – come and try for yourself…

Refresh, re-imagine and create surrounded by contemporary environmental art, re-wilded Capability Brown gardens, ancient waterways, wildlife and endless sea views.

Attendees will spend time sketching en plein air, soaking in the beauty of the park, being inspired by the stunning environmental art on display, and gathering natural materials to incorporate into our own art. They can then return to the school house studio for some experimenting – with both natural and traditional art materials – to create their own unique mixed media responses to the uniquely beautiful surroundings, guided by Exeter based Creative Minds Artist Liz Swan.

A healthy laid-back lunch at the Robert Adam gallery is included, as well as a guided wellbeing walk through the park and access to all of the art exhibitions.

These retreats are suitable for all levels of art experience, we attendees will encourage each other and share skills along the way.

Book your place now for a day to restore and reenergise your creative soul! To find out more click/tap here: Creative Wellbeing Retreats -Devon

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Creative Minds at the Alzheimer’s Show 2019

07/15/2019

The Alzheimer’s Show is an annual event held at London Olympia and is the UK’s leading event for dementia help, advice and information. The show is attended by family carers, healthcare professionals and members of the public who want to learn more.

We exhibited at this year’s event on June 7th & 8th and ran a number of art sessions for attendees to come along and get involved. Participants had the opportunity to create drawings using soft pastels and have a go at print making using cardboard blocks. There was also a giant communal canvas, which people could come and add their own mark to. It was a great opportunity for people to come explore their own creativity whilst finding out more about what we do, and the benefits that our art sessions have on those in care or living with dementia.

Attendees really got stuck in, and the gentleman pictured (with the daisy drawing) had never worked in pastels before in his life! After being diagnosed with early onset dementia, he attended the show with his daughter. He said he’d been advised to try some creative activity as it would be beneficial to him, so he bought a book on art but found it too much information. He also bought an adult colouring book, but never used it. Then when he attended the show, and visited our stand he plucked up the courage to attend our art session – he went on to produce this beautiful daisy drawing! Every participant at the session couldn’t believe he had never drawn before and all wanted a photo of him with his artwork. He was so proud and emotional by the end of the session.

CM Artists really enjoyed attending the Alzheimer’s Show too. CM Artist Laura commented; “What an amazing experience! Getting to meet so many caring people all wanting to help others, it was just so humbling. The response was brilliant, one lady said to me it was the best part of her day! The soft pastels went down a storm with lots of great work. Everyone was so pleased with their efforts. It was a very rewarding session!”.

Many industry professionals visited our stand during the day, and one of the tutors from the Reigate School of Art commented that our art sessions gave them loads more ideas and inspiration on how they can do more work to engage the local community.

We are also delighted to announce that following the Alzheimer’s Show, we have formed a partnership with a wonderful organisation, MindForYou, who run holidays for people living with dementia to enjoy with their nearest and dearest. Holiday goers will be able to enjoy fun, relaxing and therapeutic art sessions during their UK breaks, ran by our specially trained artists!

Children at a Kenyan School Get Creative!

12/07/2018

Our CM Artist Grace is a trustee of Dominion Schools Africa – a charity that provides financial support to a Kenyan school and helps to assist the school in providing high-quality education. In November, she went out to Gachie, in Nairobi to visit the school. The school year runs from January – November, so she arrived just as they were preparing for their end of year graduation which celebrates the 6-7 year old’s moving up to the junior school.

Grace saw this as a perfect opportunity for the children to get creative in preparation for graduation day. There is very little creative work in their school curriculum, and the school didn’t have many artistic resources. Grace had taken over some paint brushes and the school had pots of powder paint. That morning, Grace went shopping with the school’s head teacher and purchased some sturdy material to paint on. They decided to make some wall hangings on the theme of the biblical creation story.

Children from the school dropped in and out throughout the day and absolutely loved getting involved! Many had never had the opportunity to paint on such a large scale before. They even made some of their own paint using local earth mixed with water. The teachers were absolutely blown away by their efforts and thrilled to see how enthusiastic the children were.

Grace wanted every child in the school to have a go at creating their own self-portrait to hang up on graduation day. They experimented with mixed media and used paint, crayons and collage to create their own personal portrait. All were thrilled with the results!

The school is generally very structured with little opportunity for creative expression. At the end of the session, Grace allowed the children to have free reign to explore ways of using the artistic materials, and create whatever they wanted to. They all went wild and loved the freedom of the activity, saying how much fun they were having.

The school had never displayed artwork on the walls before, but the teachers loved the difference it made to the building. The teachers were thrilled to see how happy the children were during the art session, and chatted to Grace to discuss ways in which art could be brought into other subjects such as history and geography.

The children were so proud of their work at the end of the day, and were delighted to see it hung up on display. Before she left, one little boy came to Grace and said he’d had the “happiest day ever”!