Meditations, Pastels & Flying Paper with the Mum's at Mother's Camp

In May earlier this year I ran a workshop with a group of six mum's during Mother's Camp at Manly's Bear Cottage.

The workshop was noted on the timetable that day, but the mums initially thought it was for the kids. Minutes before the workshop they were more than a little excited to discover it was actually for them. They arrived ready to create outside at the large wooden tables where I had set up feather butterflies, a circle of pebbles, lots of blank paper and pastels. I introduced what we would be doing, a preview of The Butterfly & The Gift. Each mum chose a pebble to hold while I guided them through a meditation to relax and breathe, then they created an artwork using the pastels. During this it got rather windy, and both the feather butterflies and paper kept lifting off ~ like the wind was encouraging the mums to fly and let themselves be free with their art! Next, I guided them through a longer meditation, this time with a butterfly to uncover a gift. They drew this out, then took turns to share about their experience. It was fabulous to hear the 'gifts' each received from their meditations, including one mum who got to speak with her Grandmother who had passed away. At the end, the mums got to keep their pebbles as a reminder of the day.

Thanks to the mums who were open to create, Janet, Gy and all the Bear Cottage team. I've run several workshops at Bear Cottage since 2006 via Art IM and it turned out I had run previous workshops with these mums' kids ~ what a beautiful full circle moment for me.

Workshop run by Jelena Mrkich.

T-Shirt Design Teenage Siblings Camp

A group of eighteen teenagers from the Siblings camp designed their own -shirts. We worked with actual collages as magazines, paper, shells, fabric to create an image. We photographed the images and created layers of text and colour on top of them in photoshop. We had only four laptaps, so it was a bit challenging. The teenagers created great tee's and where very proud of their results. The workshop location was the ICMS in Manly- The International College of Management Sydney. Workshop run by Angela van Boxtel

Animal mask making workshop

On Friday 2nd June we had a great time making animal masks with 5 of the children and a sibling. The favorite mask design was the piggy! Lots of colour and glitter was used with a big dose of fun. Thanks to Viola Bloomfield my assistant and all the staff of Bear Cottage.

Regards,
Geri