The Art of Calm: Drawing for Creative Flow
9 Week Class | Registration opens 2025-07-03 12:00 PM
The Art of Calm aims to improve our drawing skills, while exploring the links between the creative process and overall well-being. Inspired by the work of artists and researchers including Betty Edwards (Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain), Lynda Barry (What It Is), and Dr. Martha Beck (Beyond Anxiety), we will engage drawing as an artistic and meditative activity. Drawing can improve our concentration, soothe our nerves, and open up pathways for creative play, all of which have spillover effects in our daily lives. Our exploration will be supported by recent scientific research around the creative process and the nervous system. Participants will come away with practical tools for cultivating creative and contemplative habits, both inside and outside the classroom.
Base Tuition: $442 + Material Fee: $10 = $452 Total
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What You Will Learn:
- The science behind creativity, including the different functions of the left and right hemispheres
- Practical exercises designed to calm the nervous system and ignite the right hemisphere’s holistic, creative perception
- Observational drawing skills including contour drawing and shading
- Improvisational and abstract drawing skills
- The importance of play for a balanced, healthy nervous system
- Please be sure to keep receipts in case items need to be returned.
Items marked with an asterix (*) are required for the first class. Other materials will be discussed in class.
- Sketchbook (9” x 12” or larger) *
- Pencils (HB, 2B, 4B) *
- Ruler
- Coloured pencil crayons
- Newsprint pad (18” x 24”)
- Fine tip black pen
Rachel Crummey
Rachel is a visual artist and writer of settler descent based in Toronto. With a background in abstract painting, poetry, and contemplative practice, she is currently learning from non-linear intelligences through collaboration with fungi. In 2022, she joined the research framework SALT (the Institute for Sensual Awareness, Language, and Touch) with artist Tara Dougans. Her paintings have been exhibited most recently at the plumb and MKG127 (Toronto) and McBride Contemporain (Montreal). She has been an artist in residence with Open Studio (Toronto) and the Salzburger Kunstverein (Austria). She is a recipient of the Joseph Plaskett Foundation’s Nancy Petry Award for emerging painters (2015) and she holds an MFA from Guelph University. She gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.