Beginner's Mind: Creative Meditation Put Into Practice I

Join artist, author, and international instructor Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch as she guides you through this live-recorded Creative Meditation around returning to the beginner's mind. Using a non-dominant hand, we explore creative expression through paint and crayon or pencil on the surface of choice. This is day one of five days of Quick Shot exercises recorded live.
This track contains ambient sounds in the background

Transcript

Welcome.

This week I want to explore the beginner's mind,

I suppose is the best way to say it.

And for me,

Gosh,

Decades into the practice of creative expression as my main mode of traveling through this world,

It's hard to get back to that.

It's hard to shut off that brain that wants to tell me where I'm going before I've gotten there.

So this whole week is about exploring that and trying to return to that.

And the best way I have found to get there,

To enter that space of more of a beginner's mind and let curiosity and new discovery rule,

Is through using my own non-dominant hand in creating.

So that is what we'll do today and then all week for the next five days as we enter into this space.

So welcome everybody to Before the Brush.

I'm Patricia Baldwin Segerberg and I've been painting abstractly for over three decades and in encaustic for over two decades.

I have five books published in the medium of encaustic and have traveled the world teaching.

It's one of my greatest passions to not only explore the diversity and inclusivity of the medium of encaustic but to now go deep into what it means to be a creative on this earth where to be created is our primary existence.

That's why the world has come to be through creative power,

Through curiosity and discovery.

So thank you for being here.

Before the Brush is a space I created a year and a half ago here on Insight Timer to introduce the idea of creativity and that connection of our hand to a surface or a material as a conduit between the divine and the reality before us.

So being here is not only something that I offer to you and the space that I've created but that I give back to myself the reminders and the necessary calls to action of sharing discovery.

So thank you for being here again.

So we gather here today as we always do,

Often do when I start these sessions with a thought bubble and then we will move on to what will be this week's determination is a guided practice using that non-dominant hand as I said.

So if you have some dry material in your possession such as Caran d'Arche neo colors or any crayon of any sort such as charcoals,

Colored pencils,

Even just your graphite pencil grab those and then at least one fluid medium.

So I'm using just an encaustic gesso.

This allows me by using that as my fluid medium it allows me to work encaustic over the top should I choose to do so.

I always like to leave that opportunity available to me.

Oh cool.

I have chosen Frederick Buchner as the thought bubbles for all this week.

I don't agree with everything he preaches so to speak but when you grab sentences when sentences jump out at me and I can grab them and take them well out of context I guess out of his context and bring them into my own they make it makes all the difference.

I find that really instrumental actually.

So Frederick Buchner is our thought bubble provider this week and today Monday I will read it twice.

The life-giving power that life itself comes from is not indifferent as to whether we sink or swim.

Its most basic characteristic is that it wishes well.

It wishes us well and is working towards that end.

I liked to imagine that and I'll read it again.

I liked to imagine this quote as suggesting that everything in the creative realm which is all the earth etc etc is here wishing us well and that includes you know my myself back to all of the world.

So read it again and this thought bubble these thought bubbles are intended to keep your mind that judgmental critical voice in your head as you practice with your hands your body your intuition on the canvas it's to give that critical brain something to chew on something to think about as you sneak around its judgmental self and apply your your brush to canvas.

So keep this thought bubble in mind with that in mind.

It's there to engage your brain that can often subject to subjugate the intentions of your creative hand and creative spirit.

The life-giving power that life itself comes from is not indifferent as to whether we sink or swim.

Its most basic characteristic is that it wishes us well and is working towards that end.

There you have it.

Chew on that for a few minutes.

I will turn my screen and we're going to start with the dry materials.

So if you have it slip on your gloves.

I always recommend if you're using anything that you intend to get your hands into that you use your gloves.

Let's first engage with the surface.

Identify with this blank canvas before us and what our intention is in coming to it.

I think it's been true of all ages since the beginning of time but very prescient in our time that resources mean something more than consumption.

So when I come to paint it takes a lot of heart and integrity for me to use the materials and the substances that have come to me to become something I can create from and with.

So I always like to spend even just 30 seconds reminding myself where these materials came from and thanking them for being a part of this immense immaculate creative world and part of the smaller world that I inhabit in which they I get to engage.

So with that in mind place your hands over the surface you're about to create upon and leaving your eyes open.

Realize that this paper,

Cardboard,

Canvas,

Wood structure surface came from something to become this before it was here before you.

If you can even just a little bit it might be strange but just a little bit thank this this paper this tree whose life was spent to give me creative power of expression for without it I would have no surface on which to explore the own my own depths of intuitive response.

This surface has come before us through its long life many lives to now become something that my me through my life here get to engage with.

Remember that too as we begin.

Now feel free as we move into these exercises to change your dry material.

I've also pulled in charcoals for myself pastels excuse me and charcoal but I'm going to start with my graphite pencil but today and all week keep yourself to your non-dominant hand.

I have a feeling if you're like me it will be a struggle as I get going I almost automatically without thinking switch to my dominant hand and will realize whoops that's not what I want.

There's a very subtle shift that happens in your brain in your nerves in your body when you go with your non-dominant hand especially if you are purely one-handed.

I am left-handed dominant yet I cut with my right.

I do a few things with my right purely because of the way the world is set up but it's still difficult even though I can use my right hand for some things some tools that require it.

It is still difficult for me to hold this pencil and do my writing in my painting in my non-dominant hand so keep to it it's going to have to sometimes be a conscious consideration but stick with it as you change tools and you manipulate the surface because it's going to open new synapses it's going to change new change old directions into new in ways that you might notice right away or that might show up later and resonate through work that you create later on so stick with it.

Alright I do not have a timer going so I'm going to go on prompts alone and see how this goes I've used timers and music for so long I forget how to simply work off of prompts.

Non-dominant hand everybody pick up your tool your first dry material and again switch as you'd like I will be doing so myself.

And on prompt we'll begin making marks but first after all that little blurbing I did connect with your surface let's start with a semic writing.

A semic writing is an intuitive writing it's not meant to be legible it can go backwards or forwards up or down it's basically scribbling.

Return to those preschool days have a thought a thought bubble speak through your pencil and let it blurb out onto the surface before you I've said this before so it's a repeat for some of you but when I was a child okay fair to say even into adulthood I enjoyed these random bubble drawings it was a way to quiet my mind and still my nerves I believe now as I can look back and see myself so that intuitive processing could happen so that my soul could speak for me personally my soul got washed under a lot of convention conformity and tradition my soul was not born for that not necessarily outside of that not the rebel but for something different as I watch myself into well into adulthood still return to this semic writing to this mindless but also gorgeously intuitive soulful expression I embrace it thank it for giving me that space of release and the opportunity to become despite despite the calls to convention and conformity with a few more turns of your hands assume your expression is unique and yet ordinary unique to you I always delight in the fact that what I think especially because in creating these sessions I of course think about what I will do and how it will show up and what will be produced always surprised completely different the evidence is at the end of our time or during our time I pulled in my dominant hand to see that it thinks it needs to take over put your dry material down and again using your non-dominant come in and smear those dry materials if it's miracle if not when your hand over the surface of your canvas note any changes subtle changes in texture and variation here I thought it was going to use charcoal and it didn't even show up alright a brush we are onto a brush myself getting tight I don't want to mess it up but I have to let go of that non-dominant hand there's nothing to mess up there's only information to add and enjoy and appreciate non-dominant hand pick up what dry mitt excuse me wet material you have chosen I'm coming in with a simple white just so over the surface for now you could be using watercolor acrylic oil wash non-dominant hand let it make its mark across this dry surface and if like me if like me your materials are water mixable mincible you'll have some beautiful color blends go on that's where the delights and the wonder can come delight and wonder come to visit speak back to the surface we're creating on if you have a large canvas like I do larger try to use your whole arm yes we're working on dominant let not just your non-dominant hand but your non-dominant wrist and elbow shoulder if you care to stand up or are standing up your whole non-dominant side of your body to join in the movements and the action of this new creativity this new expression coming down over this formally blank surface feel how that fresh handle in that non-dominant hand word in your dominant hand you wouldn't notice it's become so habituated that you have no sense of the pencil or the brush in hand it's so customary to your movement in your practice but in this non-dominant it speaks loudly is it uncomfortable perhaps uncomfortable is just curious I kind of enjoy how holding the brush in my non-dominant feels almost like again or what I imagine when I've watched younger children pick up a crayon and it looks so awkward in their hands it feels that way to me and I kind of delight in that for the time anyway and the sound using hog bristle brushes which are very coarse and the scratch across the canvas my paper to me is delightful depending on the day and mood the application be annoying as your arm tires put your brush in its wash baths and set it aside stand back a little from your canvas so that you can see its entirety rather than its intricacies not more than 10 minutes ago none of this existed and through pure openness pure commitment to show up and be here it has become through those simplest of efforts on your part congratulations the space this time is not about creating a masterpiece it's about sensing the space the surface your time your talents in a new way so that they can grow and evolve from where they began in the beginning curiosity delight explorative nature that's where we come from when we start with these kinds of techniques and tools

Reviews

Thank you so much! I can't make it to most of these lives during the week, it was such a lovely surprise to see this one pop up in my feed this morning. And a true joy to do.