Welcome to your practice today.
My name is Shannon Moyer-Seminier and I have the distinct honor and pleasure of leading you through a art-based journaling practice today.
We will do some short meditation here at the beginning after we talk about the materials that you'll need for class today and then you'll have about five minutes of music only followed by my voice to close out and get you grounded before you head on with the rest of your day.
Art-based journaling is one of my favorite practices to give a physical representation to the emotions that we feel as human beings,
To give context to the lived experiences that we carry from our past,
Our present,
And where we are going and headed with our future.
Let's take a moment just to talk about your setup for the day.
I encourage you to be really open with yourself and hold yourself with a lot of non-judgment today.
Nobody is going to look or judge your piece of art at the end of this.
You are doing this practice simply for you.
Your setup for your practice today is very simply whatever art materials you have available to you.
I personally have an 8x8 journal where all of my emotional artwork goes into.
A heavier weighted paper so that I can use texture paste or watercolor,
Wetter materials,
But also a space that ink and marker isn't going to bleed through onto the next page because every page holds a story.
If you have a journal available to you,
I encourage you to use that and if you don't have one yet,
That's okay.
A piece of computer paper,
A scrap piece of canvas will do just fine.
So that is your base.
What about the materials that you choose to make line and shape and color?
Those could be watercolor pencils or markers.
It could be acrylic or oil paint.
It might be,
Like me,
A multimedia experience that incorporates wax and texture paste.
Whatever it is that you choose for today,
Know that you need to just trust.
Whatever your intuition says,
These are the materials for today.
Pull them out,
Spread them out in front of you along with the surface that you're going to be creating on.
And once you have all of your materials in front of you,
Taking your hands and placing them folded over your heart,
Closing the windows of your eyes.
Before we can begin with art journaling,
We need to tap in to the emotion.
Taking a breath in and out,
Ever so gently,
Ever so easily,
Following your own natural rhythm and contemplating just for a moment,
How are you feeling right now?
How are you feeling right now?
Not how you were feeling several days ago,
Or even how you want to feel,
But a true and honest introspective look at how you are feeling right now,
Here in this moment.
How are you feeling right now?
If your heart could tell a story through art,
Through paint,
Through pencil and line and shape and form,
How are you feeling right now?
What would that story look like?
How are you feeling right now?
If your heart could speak the words out loud and say,
This is how I'm feeling,
What would it say?
What is the story?
What is attached to this feeling of right now?
How are you feeling right now?
Taking a few more cycles of breath here before opening the windows of your eyes and looking down at the materials in front of you.
That feeling of right now is what we're going to create with.
Intuitively,
Instinctually,
Taking your materials and using the next five minutes of music only to create,
Giving a physical representation to that feeling of right now.
What does it look like?
What are the colors?
How do the lines move throughout the page?
What images and symbols did you see?
How can you give a physical representation to the feeling of right now?
Now take a breath.
Pull yourself back from creating.
Hands placed folded back over your heart and looking down at what it is is the physical representation of your emotion.
How did this come to be?
There in its most perfect iteration of self,
This is how you feel right now.
And now it's time to check in with the body,
Closing your eyes once more to seal in the practice of today.
When you take a moment to consider what it is that you've created,
How do you feel right now?
After you've let it all go and you've put it down on paper and canvas with paint and charcoal and art,
How do you feel right now?
Taking a big breath in and out,
Allowing your body and your breath to travel back to its original state.
How do you feel right now?
This is a practice you can return to any time that you need it.
That journal is there for you.
Those art materials hold no judgment and just want to pull out from you what you've been holding so close to your chest.
Bowing your chin ever so slightly,
Sealing in your practice for today and making a promise to return here when the feelings are too big and the voices are too loud.
When it feels right to you,
Allowing the windows of your eyes to come back open.
Thank you for your practice today.
Return here any time that you need to.
And remember that your art and your journal is perfect,
Just like you,
Simply because it exists.
