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mindful art

Mindfulness Sessions Coming to Pinot & Picasso

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Mindfulness Sessions Coming to Pinot & Picasso

Looking for an activity that will help you disconnect from the stresses of everyday life? Pinot & Picasso is releasing a specially crafted mindful art session, where you’ll explore creativity and self-connection. 

With an open canvas and a meditation experience, you will have the space to tune into your emotions, put your feelings and thoughts on the canvas, and block out the outside noise – even if it’s just for a few hours. 

Guiding the session is a talented Pinot & Picasso artist, accompanied by Emma Tian Williamson. Emma, a mindfulness and meditation teacher, specialising in helping individuals find balance in the fast-paced modern world. For her, awareness-based practices are an ‘antidote for modern life’. What she loves most about teaching is passing on the tools that have helped her to live a more resilient and happy life.

BOOK A MINDFULNESS SESSION
Open Canvas at Pinot and Picasso Mindfulness Sessions
An example of what you could create at our Mindfulness Sessions. The canvas is all yours.

WHAT IS NEUROGRAPHIC ART?

You’re probably thinking “What is Neurographic Art?” 

Our Mindfulness sessions will add a twist to neurographic art. You’re probably thinking “What is neurographic art?” Let us tell you! Neurographic art blends brain power with creative fun.

It’s all about creating a colourful work of art while your brain forms new connections, making every stroke a step towards mindfulness and joy. Want to learn more? Watch the video below on neurographic art.

LEARN MORE HERE

HOW WE RUN OUR MINDFULNESS SESSIONS

Our Mindfulness Sessions at Pinot & Picasso allows you to explore creativity and connection with ourselves. For three hours, you’ll connect, create and meditate, walking away with a masterpiece and feeling more relaxed than you started. 

The first hour of the session is all about practising mindfulness activities with Emma, including:

  • 10-minute settling mediation practice with Emma.
  • 30-minute mindful drawing exercise with Emma
  • 10-minute mindful movement session to relax the body. 

After this, you’ll be guided through creating your own artwork on the open canvas with our artist. With help from Emma, you’ll practise tuning into your mood and emotional state that will inspire your design. 

Before the session ends, there’ll be a group reflection activity, which is not as scary as it sounds! 

BOOK A MINDFULNESS SESSION
Emma Tian Williamson

ABOUT EMMA

Emma Tian Williamson is a mindfulness and meditation teacher helping people to find balance in modern life.  She was drawn to mindfulness after a period of burnout and found the practice to be life changing. She went on to train, and has taught in workplaces, studios, festivals and hospices since. For her, awareness-based practices are an ‘antidote for modern life’. What she loves most about teaching is passing on the tools that have helped her to live a more resilient and happy life.

10 Reasons Why Creativity is Important In Our Everyday Lives

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Why creativity is important

Creativity engages the mind in a unique way and has the power to enrich various aspects of life in a so many positive ways. It fosters innovative problem-solving, enhances communication, encourages adaptability, and strengthens connections.

Moreover, creativity has profound effects on physical and mental health, contributing to overall happiness and well-being. Cultivating creativity is life enhancing and a great tool for success and fulfillment in so many areas, making it a valuable skill to nurture and incorporate into our daily routines.

Keep reading to find our 10 reasons why discovering your creative potential will have a positive impact on your well being and life satisfaction.

Why is Creativity Important?

1. Helps with Personal Expression

Creativity and personal expression are intimately connected, forming a powerful symbiotic relationship. Creativity facilitates and enhances personal expression through allowing individuals to discover and nurture their own unique voice. Engaging in creative activities can lead to self-discovery. Through the process of creating, individuals explore their interests, values, and beliefs. It encourages introspection, helping people understand themselves on a deeper level.

smile creative girl

2. Helps Improve Mental Health

Creativity can have numerous positive effects on mental health and overall well-being. Engaging in creative ideas or activities, whether it’s painting, writing, music, or any other form of expression, can act as a form of meditation. Focusing on the creative process allows individuals to temporarily disconnect from stressors, promoting relaxation and reducing stress levels. Creating something tangible and meaningful provides a sense of achievement, which can positively impact one’s self-worth.

3. Improves Critical Thinking Skills

Incorporating creative thinking into educational and professional environments can significantly enhance critical thinking skills. By encouraging creativity, individuals are better equipped to approach problems with open minds, consider diverse perspectives, and evaluate options critically, leading to more effective and informed decision-making.

4. Problem Solving

When you need to solve problems, it’s easy to get stuck in the same thought patterns but creativity helps you break out of these patterns. Creative thinking encourages thinking beyond conventional boundaries and helps you consider out-of-the-box solutions that might not be immediately apparent. Creativity boosts innovative ideas which can lead to breakthroughs in problem-solving and produce an amazing new creative solution!

5. Provides a Different Perspective

Fostering creativity allows us to look at the big picture from different angles, offering a unique and diverse perspective. By encouraging creative thinking, people can break free from conventional patterns, explore unconventional ideas, and approach problems from various angles, leading to fresh insights and points of view.

2 people smiling

6. Helps Build Relationships and Connections

Creativity brings people together and has the power to foster meaningful connections between individuals through shared experiences, inspiration, collaboration and community building. It opens doors to authentic and meaningful connections by enabling individuals to express themselves, understand others, collaborate effectively, and appreciate the beauty and diversity of human experiences. Whether it’s through art, music, literature, or any other form of creative expression, people can forge lasting connections that enrich their lives and the lives of those around them.

7. Enhances Productivity

Creativity challenges the mundane and combats stagnation both personally and professionally. It promotes overall efficiency by encouraging you to be a creative thinker, produce innovative solutions and improve self esteem. Creative play allows us to launch into tasks more passionately, which often translates to increased efficiency!

8. Helps with Business Success

Creative thinking encourages thinking beyond conventional boundaries and opens up space for original ideas and innovative solutions in the workplace. Creativity also boosts productivity and fosters professional development and growth. Promoting business creativity and a workplace culture that values and nurtures creativity, organisations can significantly enhance productivity while fostering a more engaging and satisfying work environment for their employees.

9. It is a Useful Skill to Have

Creative people can attest to creativity being a very valuable skill to have and encourage creativity self expression amongst all ages and walks of life! It helps with processing emotions, decision making, generating new ideas and enhancing other talents and skills you already have. Creativity can be applied to a wide range of applications in various aspects of life, making it not only a useful skill to have, but an essential one to foster!

10. Fosters Emotional Intelligence

Creativity provides a channel for understanding and expressing emotions, empathising with others and developing essential social and emotional skills. Through creative endeavours, individuals can cultivate emotional intelligence, leading to improved relationships, effective communication, and overall emotional well-being.

Easy Ways to Incorporate Creativity into Your Everyday Life:

1. Art Classes

Art classes are highly beneficial as they allow us to experience all the benefits listed above in a fun and engaging environment! Creative classes provide a structured and supportive environment for us to unleash our creative side and learn new skills, all while fostering social connections and community spirit.



2. Start an Art Journal

An art journal serves as a versatile and therapeutic tool for personal expression, creativity, and self-reflection. It provides a safe space to express emotions, reduces stress, fosters creativity, and acts as a visual diary. Art journaling can help process complex emotions, set intentions, document experiences, and serve as a source of inspiration.

3. Practice Mindful Art

Applying the benefits of mindfulness to creativity enables us to explore emotions and thoughts in a new, imaginative and calm way. Mindful art often induces a natural flow state where you focus on your breath, thoughts, emotions and sensations while creating. Using creativity to explore these feelings in a fun and stress free way allows us to externalise our internal struggles, making them tangible. This process often leads to a sense of catharsis and can contribute significantly to healing and improving emotional well-being. Visit our mindful sessions HERE

Explore the Different Functions Offered by Pinot & Picasso’s Here!

What is Mindful Art? – The Benefits and Engaging Activities

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Mindful Art Painting

What is Mindful Art? - The Benefits and Engaging Activities

In today’s fast-paced, technologically-driven world, the need for mindfulness has become increasingly crucial for our self care, inviting us to slow down, breathe and be present.

Worried you aren’t much of a Picasso? The great news is there’s no artistic experience required! Mindful art is all about the process, not the end product! Creative expression is a fundamental aspect of being human and engaging in fun, mindfulness based art activities is a valuable and accessible tool for anyone looking to enhance their well-being and enrich their lives!

Mindful art combines the benefits of mindfulness and creative expression, offering a pathway to self-discovery and healing, along with stress and anxiety reduction There are various types of mindfulness based art therapy you can explore, each offering a range of benefits.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present and engaged in the creative process. It involves paying deliberate and non-judgmental attention to your thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they arise. Mindfulness allows us to cultivate self-awareness and self-compassion and invites us to be gentle and kind to our inner critic.

The beauty of mindfulness is you can practice mindfulness anywhere, anytime. It may be as simple as taking a deep breath, smelling the aroma of your morning coffee or savouring the taste of that crispy bacon. Listening to the birds chirping outside your window or looking up at the sky and taking in the wonder and serenity of the vast cloudscape above you.

What is Mindful Art?

Put simply, mindful art is a creative form of meditation. Applying the benefits of mindfulness to artistic endeavors enables us to explore emotions and thoughts in a calm, gentle and fun way.

Mindful art often induces a natural flow state where you are encouraged to focus on your breath, thoughts, emotions and sensations while creating. Using art activities to explore these feelings in a fun and stress free way allows us to externalise our internal struggles, making them tangible. This process often leads to a sense of catharsis and can contribute significantly to healing and improving emotional well-being.

Pinot & Picasso Mindful Art

Benefits of Mindful Art:

Creative expression can be profoundly healing, serving as a form of therapy, allowing individuals to process complex feelings and experiences.

Helps with reducing stress:

You focus on the process and the being in the present moment, meaning outside stress, duties and concerns go out the window during creating. The calming effects and enjoyment also put us in a more relaxed state, decreasing everyday stressors.

Helps increase self awareness and self acceptance:

Creating from a judgement free mindset fosters a sense of self acceptance, empowerment and gratitude.

Enables emotional healing:

Art making allows us to turn inward and express ourselves in gentle way, offering clarity and insight into feelings and thoughts and the processing of difficult emotions.

Boosts creative thinking:

Surrendering to the flow of making art without overthinking or self-criticism allows a true, authentic freedom of creative expression to emerge. This can reveal new curiosity help unlock

Mindful Art Activities:

There are many fun and mindful art practices to explore using various art materials that are appropriate and beneficial for children and adults. Many children find a level of peace and relaxation in art as it focuses their minds and helps them look at the world around them in a more engaged way.

Attend a mindful art studio HERE!

Collage journaling:

Collage journaling is a versatile style of art making that combines images, text, drawings, and other art elements to express thoughts and emotions in a visual format. expressive means to This form of self-expression is highly personal and allows you to explore and document your inner thoughts.

Meditative colouring:

Portable and convenient, meditative colouring is accessible for everyone and might take adults down memory lane! The designs in meditative colouring books are specifically created to be complex, encouraging individuals to pay attention to small details while filling your pages with all the hues of the rainbow, whether it be with pencils, markers, or crayons.

Hand Colouring In With Pencils

Breathwork painting:

Breath work painting combines the therapeutic benefits of engaging in slow, conscious breathing with intentional breaths during the act of painting. This cultivates a heightened sense of awareness, allowing you to connect with your inner self on a profound level and aims to promote emotional release and alleviate anxiety.

Hand painting brush on canvas pinot & picasso blog

Mindful origami:

Mindful origami combines the ancient art of paper folding with the principles of mindfulness. It offers a way for individuals to cultivate presence through the meditative process of folding paper and for forming intricate designs.

mindful origami

Photography meditation:

Also known as contemplative photography, this mindful practice involves using a camera or a smartphone to capture images intentionally. The focus is on exploring one’s surroundings with a fresh perspective, appreciating the inherent beauty of nature and the present moment.

Body and finger painting:

Body and finger painting offers a unique tactile and sensory experience beneficial to all ages and abilities. Whether using the body as canvas (non-toxic paints please!) or feeling the smooth texture and squishing movement of paint under your fingers, these methods engage the senses in a fun and interactive way.

What is the Difference Between Art Therapy and Mindful Art?

Art therapy and mindful art both use creative expression for therapeutic purposes but they have distinct differences in their approaches and goals.

While mindful art is practised in an informal setting (at home or in an art class) and can be a self-directed practice, art therapy occurs in a clinical setting with a qualified art therapist. The therapist is trained to interpret the artwork, providing insights and facilitating discussion about the artwork and its emotional significance. 

Explore the Different Functions Offered by Pinot & Picasso.

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

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5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine.

Art can be a really helpful activity when it comes to self-care. The art of putting paint to canvas can lead to improving physical and mental health. 

The best self-care tips start with everyday activities that can help with emotions. With this in mind, one of the best self-care activities is mindful art-making.

Creating art as a consistent practice can enhance your wellbeing and boost your sense of living in the present moment. It’s very zen, and we all need a little zen in our lives. Read on to find out how making art can help with self compassion, feeling stress-free and self care.

 

5 Self-Care Benefits of Art:

1. Enhances Self Expression

The beauty of creating art as self-care is that it allows you to put your emotions onto your canvas. Self expression through art can be shown through colour and patterns. Mindful art is always judgement-free and enables self expression in a creative way.

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

2. Builds Confidence and Self Esteem

Releasing emotions in this way can provide a sense of relief and can better your understanding of your own thought processes. Deep. 

Getting creative with painting and your ideas can build confidence and self esteem. Building a solid foundation for these to grow can have more positive impacts in your personal life, workplace and with friends.

3. Distracts Your Mind

Practice makes perfect, and mastering a visual art skill can work wonders for improving the way you think about yourself. 

Want a break your thoughts? Art can help us stay sane and reduce stress by providing a constructive distraction. If you’re ever feeling overwhelmed, making art can help us focus on the present moment, find balance, and enjoy exploring your own creativity.

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

4. Helps the Healing Process

We all love a bit of self discovery. You can learn a lot about yourself by putting paint to a blank canvas and creating mindful art. Create art based on your feelings and let the process of painting unveil your mindset. This is the powerful role art can play in your self-care routine.

5. Connects You With Others

A benefit of art is that it allows you to connect with others through creativity. Art is a powerful social tool when it comes to making new friends, connecting with loved ones or those with similar interests to you.

Ways to Use Art to Practise Self Care:

1. Create a Vision Board

Get creative about your life with a vision board. Be in the present moment while finding inspiration for your future. Pinterest is a popular platform where art and other pins can be a helpful tool to organising elements of your life.

2. Mindful Meditative Art

Practice mindfulness by painting your own masterpiece. With busy lives, art allows you to stay focused as a meditation exercise. Focus on the precise movements of putting paint to canvas, how it makes you feel and any ideas it inspires.

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

3. Create an Emotion Wheel

Focus on your mental health with your own emotion wheel. Using all the colours, draw a wheel with different colours representing comfortable and uncomfortable emotions you come across in your life. This enables you to open up and gain a better understanding of your inner feelings.

4. Design a Postcard that will Never be Sent

Put all your thoughts onto a postcard filled with either feel good moments or something you’ve wanted to get off your chest. This is a fun way to express your feelings and is something you can read again and again when you need to.

5. Create a Painting Only Using Colours that Calm You

Reduce your stress level and anxiety by painting with colours that bring you joy and happiness. Express your creativity with self care art that will encourage you to feel calm, relaxed and inspire hope.

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

6. Mindful Colouring

Practising mindful art is the perfect way to take time to focus on your own world. Mindful colouring doesn’t require a great deal of artistic skill, but the results can be absolutely beautiful. It’s an amazing way to practise mindful art and enjoy all the mental health benefits it provides. 

7. Attend a Paint and Sip Session

Want to create art with your friends? Pinot & Picasso is a paint and sip experience which focuses on connecting people through colour and creativity. With popular music creating a fun atmosphere, you’ll have an artist guide you step-by-step through an artwork of your choice.

Socialise and brighten your mood with a three hour session dedicated to creating art with a side of wine.  Alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages can be purchased at the studio, helping you create a masterpiece and experience the therapeutic joys of creating art.

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

8. Keep an Art Journal

Explore your creative mind by creating your own art journal. Put your everyday life into art by dedicating time at the end of the day to expressing yourself.

9. Draw a Body Image Sketch

Drawing might be considered the most simple form of art, but it’s a great way to tap into your innermost feelings. Get a sketch pad and draw your own body onto canvas. Focusing your own form is a great way to explore self care and show your body the love it deserves.

10. Create a Past, Present and Future Portrait

Ready to get deep? Create multiple portraits for yourself in the past, present and future. This activity is personal to you, showing how you feel towards yourself as you make art about your world.

5 Reasons Why Art Should Be Part of Your Self-Care Routine

Struggling With Your Mental Health?

Talk to Your GP:

If you’re struggling, talking to your GP is a great place to start. Your GP will guide you in the right direction to finding professional support.

Workplace Support:

Sometimes our biggest life stresses come from our job. Talk to your workplace support to see how you can implement self care actions that can help with your mental wellbeing.

Mental Health Helplines:

Samaritans

SANEline

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