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The Creativity Firestarter Online Course

Q. What’s your most precious work in progress?

A. It’s YOU!!!

Wherever you are in life; whatever your age, occupation or experience, whatever life choices you’ve made, it’s never too late to change, grow and see the world differently.

 

YOU are an amazing work in progress and whilst we can’t turn back the clock and improve on our past selves – we can pick up loose threads, start again or completely change our patterns of behaviour.

Change is good and fortunately we’re all equipped with the most amazing tool designed to help us make significant lasting changes at any stage in our life.  Our brain with its incredible neuroplasticity is our most powerful tool .

You may be familiar with Hebb’s Law (Donald Hebb was a Canadian psychologist with an interest in neuroscience and the behaviour of neurons and synapses in the brain.) He coined the phrase “Neurons that fire together wire together.”

 When you put yourself in a new situation,  do something or think something different, and particularly if you repeat this action several times, new neural connections  and structures are built in your brain.

And – it works the other way too……if you have bits of knowledge or things you don’t think about or do very often there are cells in your brain that prune these out to make way for the new stuff.

“What you think, you become.
What you feel, you attract.
What you imagine, you create.”

Written more than two thousand years ago this Buddhist principle is now supported by scientific data. So you really can craft your own mind  – but be conscious that the things you do and think about most will get hard wired into your brain.

If you occasionally toy with the idea of being more creative, but mostly consume things passively through TV, social media or gossip magazines it’s likely your brain won’t take your ambitions very seriously.

I find this idea so exciting and it really does prove that if you have an ambition to live a more creative life – it’s never too late to take action.

So what’s stopping you?

The chances are it’s YOU. Or, more specifically – that internal critic inside you who wants you to play safe, toe the line and never do anything that might threaten it’s fragile ego.

Your internal critic constantly judges, whispers words of doubt and derision and tries to talk you out of doing new things and taking leaps of faith.

Don’t believe everything you think

 There’s another voice in your head struggling to be heard – and that’s the voice of your creative soul. This part of you is non judgemental, open minded, curious, impulsive and playful, and they’re much more fun to be with.

We all have the potential to make imaginative leaps, think outside the box and write our own rules,  we just need the tools to do it and sometimes we want permission to play.

Well I’m giving you permission and I can also help you fire and wire those neural connections to start building a more creative mindset.

Creativity isn’t a stroke of genius bestowed upon the lucky few.

It’s not a talent you’re born with or an elusive flash of inspiration. It’s a skill that can be learnt, like any other skill and I can show you how.

My new short course The Creativity Firestarter is designed to ignite your creative potential through a series of short, easy to follow, art and design exercises using a range of simple techniques and processes.

I’ll give you a  tool kit full of ideas to help you develop your practical creative skills in a series of short achievable activities. I can help you navigate your way through some of the basic principles of design and the terminology used though simple playful exercises that any one, at any level, can enjoy.

The activities are designed to get you started, try things out and sample techniques in small, bite sized chunks.

We won’t be generating ‘finished’ art work, the emphasis is on enjoying the process not judging the results. It’s about taking action and not worrying about the outcome.

I think of this approach  to creativity like  a complex maths question where the fascination lies in the ‘workings’ and calculations – it’s in the scribbles on the page and notes  in the margins. The beauty is in the doing and thinking  not the final, right or wrong,  answer.

This course is all about changing the way you think about yourself and connecting or re-connecting with your creative soul.

The course is designed as an intense 5 day programme with well-paced activities throughout each day so you can completely immerse yourself in the process, or you can work your way slowly and methodically through the activities – whichever works best for you.

Each day begins with an (optional) short meditation designed to help you prepare mentally for the days activities. I know meditation isn’t for everyone and there’s no expectation at all to engage, but I find that even just a few minutes of calm, and clearing the clutter from my brain, before starting a creative activity can be so helpful.

If you’re short on time and need to fit the course around a busy schedule – that’s fine too. All the activities will be delivered as video tutorials, downloadable PDF’s and audio files so you can dip in and out of the course in your own time and at your own pace and we have a ‘community’ space where you can share your work, if you’d like to, and connect with other people on the course.

There’s no ‘deadline’ – you can join the course at anytime and dip in and out at your own pace.

I’m so excited to be bringing this course to you, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time and I’m drawing on over 30 years experience of teaching art and design to a diverse range of learners . My methods are tried and tested by students at all levels from Adult Education to Masters level, oh – and they’re good fun too!

So if you’re looking for that spark to fire your imagination I can help you ignite your creative brain and quieten your inner critic.

And if you need any more reasons to take that leap – here are 13.

Nip over here to book your place now…….

This Post Has 5 Comments

  1. Wow this looks so exciting and different. I make myself do January drawing each year for last 4 and so enjoy once I’m in to it following a prompt a day and January usually goes so fast…email each morning somehow gets creative juices flowing !! Can’t wait all booked, kit sorted……..xx

    1. Thanks Amelia! I can’t wait to get started on this – I’m very excited about it and delighted you’re going to be joining me! x

  2. I’m looking forward to this adventure! I don’t know why but I keep thinking of all the glitter and macaroni art I created in summer school 50 years ago – I’m sure this will probably be a little more elevated than that but I suspect the fun and creativity will be there. Well timed I might add as the US is gradually heading back to masks and lock downs – this will be my staycation :).

  3. Dear Sue,

    After several years of admiring your work from afar (Devon), I’m celebrating the start of my retirement by joining you for the Firestarter. We are moving to West Wales in the next few weeks so this is the perfect time to see what surfaces after 50 years of my creativity taking second place to work! Looking forward to it very much.

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