Expressive Art Journalling:
creative self care
1st & 3rd Wednesday each month
5:30 - 7PM | Artists @ Work Gallery | $30
Everyone is welcome, and no experience is needed.
Each week we’ll be exploring a different way to fill our journal pages and tend to our human selves - bring the things you’re curious about, stressed about, angry about, sad about, bring your uncertainty, bring the things you love and the things that are delighting you. Your art journal is the perfect place to come to with all the stuff that makes up our messy human lives.
No experience is necessary - you don’t need to know how to draw or see yourself as creative to come give this a go.
All art materials provided - just bring your journal! Paper will be provided if you forget your journal or don't have one - and if you'd like to purchase a journal from me, I’ll have a few available for $10.
These classes are in person at the Artists @ Work gallery, 29 Sheridan St, Cairns City.
What’s an art journal and how will we be using it?
Your art journal can be anything! Which might feel a bit overwhelming if you haven’t already found your way of art journalling. If it can be anything, how do you know what to do?
In our class, we’ll be using our art journals as a place for creative self care.
An art journal is like a written journal, but it also incorporates art in some way - images, collage, patterns, drawings, squiggles, things cut out, things stuck in - the options are endless. You might like to write in your art journal too, or have it just be images.
Your art journal is unique and personal to you, so you get to write the rules and have your journal be whatever you need for this stage in your life. It can be a place to vent, a place to play, a place to make a mess, a place to figure things out.
So how do you figure out what you need yours to be?
By trying things!
We’ll be trying new things together each week, building and adding to our personal tool kit of ideas and techniques, finding the things we love doing that feel most useful for us.
What will you need?
You’ll need an art journal!
If you have one that you’ve been saving for a special occasion, perhaps this is the occasion you’ve been waiting for. Use the nice journal, get out the good paper. What are you saving it for? If it’s for ‘someday’, please know that ‘someday’ is not a real day, but today is a real day and a good day to use the nice journal.
If you have an art journal you’re already using, feel free to keep going in the same journal.
If you need to go buy one, it doesn’t have to be expensive (though it can be if you’d like it to be!). Some of my favourites are $5 blank visual diaries - if it’s cheap, it can feel easier to let go of perfectionism and experiment, because we’re not so concerned with making it look extra nice.
Everything else will be provided - there will be lots of different art materials to play with. If you have your own supplies that you want to use, you’re welcome to bring those, but I’ll have lots!
I’ll also supply paper if you forget your journal or don’t have one, and will have a few journals available for $10.
Got questions?
Something I’ve missed here that you’d like to know?
If you have questions, please get in touch and I’ll find you some answers.
Extra support
Sometimes this kind of art journalling can bring up thoughts or fears or past hurts that might want some extra tending to. If you’re finding you’d like some extra 1:1 support, 1:1 art therapy sessions are available with me - feel free to ask in class, or:
Who am I?
I’m Ellen, and my pronouns are she/ her. My approach is curious, creative, gentle and kind, and I bring this philosophy to all of the work I do. I love this kind of creative work and how art journaling allows us to explore ourselves, our lives and our experiences in the world in new and different ways - creating a journal we can hold in our hands and look back through in the process.
My background is as an art therapist, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (if you’re not familiar, Somatic Experiencing is a gentle way of working with the nervous system to support trauma healing), and I have a coaching certification where I majored in Life Transitions with a focus on the seasons of human life and emotion. I’ve also done a short training in End of Life Doula work, looking at the ways we support (or don’t support) our journey towards the end of life, and Eco Psychotherapy - getting outside and finding a new relationship with the natural world.
I’m pretty sure my purpose in life is to create, in whatever way feels best at the time - and to gently encourage others to do the same :)
Testimonials
Working with Ellen feels like a softening of tension held in my shoulders and chest that I didn't even realise was there. She has been so genuinely okay and accepting of everything I've brought to her, including the parts of myself that even I don't really like. It's truly a sigh of relief to be met in this way.
She somehow alchemically makes the healing path easeful, deep, and wondrous. And with her own creative bones and eccentricities, helps you to find delight and access different layers of being in the world along the way.
Carol
I really enjoyed this workshop, especially the way it combines various elements together. This is the first time I used art to assist in self discovery in this way and I found it to be rather helpful in gaining further insight into shadow self.
Ellen is a great facilitator, I felt that I was in great hands, guided by her knowledge, experience and skills. She easily created a space in which I felt completely safe and comfortable, allowing myself to journey within.
I have and do highly recommend this workshop if you are interested in going deeper and getting to know yourself better.
Betty, photographer
