Course Description

Join Sheila Atchley in learning powerful rituals and techniques to bring fresh fire into your practice of art and of life.

This course is faith-based and is specifically centered in the Christian faith. Please note that the teacher’s faith is discussed in this class, but that all projects can be applied to any form of inspiration or any poetry. The advice given towards the development of an artistic lifestyle are also applicable to anyone, and can be powerful for all faiths or no faith. Please also note that all manner of discussion, faith, neutral, even anti-faith, is welcome on the private FB group so long as it meets the guidelines of being respectful and kind.

Come “play with fire” with Sheila Atchley. Your fire, and the things that spark your inspiration uniquely, are as personal as your DNA. You’ll be inspired to honor your unique spark. Using poetry as a powerful tool, you will learn how to design personal creative rituals, visit the art of Lectio Divina, and read and write poetry that will then kindle the most beautiful art. Find a community of poets and artists, and together make soulful, simple, poetic offerings, effortless keepsake art journals, and literally weave your beautiful moments.

These are exciting times. Poets and poetry are coming into the spotlight as never before. I have always felt like poetry and painting go together. Let’s explore certain themes, let’s tap into our fleeting immediate raw emotion, let’s write creatively and paint expressively. Let’s even meditate a little bit, and do personal “moment studies” complete with “field notes”. Let’s take a poem and abstract it, take a special moment and literally weave it; let’s learn about story boards, and then collage images. Let’s examine metaphor, and how to distill emotions into a few nourishing, well chosen words. In the process, we will play, practice basic hand lettering technique, figure out how to pour resin over our paintings, and we will create atmospheric self portraits easily, with vellum. There’s so much goodness here. You’ll be able to soak yourself in the overflow for a long, long time. I promise.

Techniques Taught in this Course

– Find out how to create abstract flow art, using inks
– Experiment with a resin pour-over
– Create layered, atmospheric art on vellum
– Create a keepsake vintage tin
– Discover a different approach to weaving, using a variety of textiles/mediums
– Be deeply inspired to do your own “moment studies” and take effective “field notes”
– Learn techniques to help you respect the way you are uniquely inspired
– Form effective creative rituals
– Identify effective repositories and use them
– Learn basic hand lettering principles
– Learn about “Lectio Divina”
– Make an elegantly simple hand-made art journal with a leather or a fabric cover
– Use a pyrography pen on leather
– Learn how to make the simplest portable paint palette ever
– Find out how to create a “story-board”
– Fun collage the old fashioned way, or with fresh, easy digital technique
– Re-use past art in new, poignant ways, and combine it with original poetry
– Refresh your use of metaphor in your creative writing
– Learn how to distill emotions into poetry
– Feel the courage to make a large sign with your favorite words in your own handwriting
– See how to do a large-scale abstract painting
– Be equipped to take a favorite poem, abstract it, and make it into a painting
– Discover how to make a “word well”
– Be inspired to do a self-portrait in words
– Find out how to utilize technology soulfully in your practice of word or visual art