Sketchbook Saturday: Mindful Pauses

Karly Allen facilitates this online event for The National Gallery

Sketchbook Saturdays are morning-long creative sessions with the aim of exploring the various ways in which artists have approached their own image making.

Suitable for beginners, as well as those wanting to improve their current skills, each month we explore a particular theme or subject through practical activities based upon the art and artists found in our collection.

From drawing techniques and materials, to the ways that artists today have taken inspiration from the past, develop your own toolkit of ideas for making art at home.

Take a mindful approach to looking and drawing, in this session led by Karly Allen. Starting with a short mindfulness practice, you’ll be guided to notice the gaps in between shapes in paintings, where we experience a visual pause. Making drawings to explore and expand these spaces, we’ll take mindful pauses to encourage a greater sense of ease and connection as we draw. Suitable for all, no previous experience of mindfulness needed.

 

Craft Live: Drawing and Mindfulness 3 for The British Library

With Karly Allen

Start your day with a mindful experience based on one artwork in our collection. Bringing together drawing exercises and mindful meditation, our course encourages a close relationship with art while opening up a greater space for creativity.

The practice of mindful drawing invites us to be fully present with the sensations of looking and making marks on paper. Coming into the present moment like this can help us to feel more focused and grounded, and have a positive effect on our sense of wellbeing.

Our session begins with a short meditation practice to settle the mind and awake the senses, then we’ll explore a 16th century Japanese manuscript of the Tales of Ise, through observational drawing and abstract drawn responses. The session ends with an opportunity to reflect on your experience of sustained, careful looking, before closing with a mindful pause.

This is one of three Drawing and Mindfulness events which can be booked across three Fridays in August:

Friday 6 August

Friday 13 August

Friday 27 August

This course takes place on Zoom and we will email you a joining link the day before. There will be an opportunity to reflect on your experience with your fellow participants and share your responses with the tutor.

Live captions will be provided by Stagetext.

Craft Live: Drawing and Mindfulness 2 for The British Library

With Karly Allen

Start your day with a mindful experience based on one artwork in our collection. Bringing together drawing exercises and mindful meditation, our course encourages a close relationship with art while opening up a greater space for creativity.

The practice of mindful drawing invites us to be fully present with the sensations of looking and making marks on paper. Coming into the present moment like this can help us to feel more focused and grounded, and have a positive effect on our sense of wellbeing.

Our session begins with a short meditation practice to settle the mind and awake the senses, then we’ll explore a 16th century Japanese manuscript of the Tales of Ise, through observational drawing and abstract drawn responses. The session ends with an opportunity to reflect on your experience of sustained, careful looking, before closing with a mindful pause.

This is one of three Drawing and Mindfulness events which can be booked across three Fridays in August:

Friday 6 August

Friday 13 August

Friday 27 August

This course takes place on Zoom and we will email you a joining link the day before. There will be an opportunity to reflect on your experience with your fellow participants and share your responses with the tutor.

Live captions will be provided by Stagetext.

Craft Live: Drawing and Mindfulness 1 for The British Library

With Karly Allen

Start your day with a mindful experience based on one artwork in our collection. Bringing together drawing exercises and mindful meditation, our course encourages a close relationship with art while opening up a greater space for creativity.

The practice of mindful drawing invites us to be fully present with the sensations of looking and making marks on paper. Coming into the present moment like this can help us to feel more focused and grounded, and have a positive effect on our sense of wellbeing.

Our session begins with a short meditation practice to settle the mind and awake the senses, then we’ll explore a 16th century Japanese manuscript of the Tales of Ise, through observational drawing and abstract drawn responses. The session ends with an opportunity to reflect on your experience of sustained, careful looking, before closing with a mindful pause.

This is one of three Drawing and Mindfulness events which can be booked across three Fridays in August:

Friday 6 August

Friday 13 August

Friday 27 August

This course takes place on Zoom and we will email you a joining link the day before. There will be an opportunity to reflect on your experience with your fellow participants and share your responses with the tutor.

Live captions will be provided by Stagetext.

Buddhism: Art and Mindfulness

This two-day creative course investigates the teachings and practices explored in our Buddhism exhibition and considers how these might translate into our viewing, making and understanding of art. Combining ‘slow’ looking, drawing and reflective exercises, this masterclass offers meditative approaches to help engage more deeply and meaningfully with art. Over the course of the weekend, our tutors share strategies for improving focus and attention, to cultivate a sense of enjoyment and appreciation of an artwork and the experience of being fully present with it.

Through short guided exercises, explore the benefits of meditation in preparing for looking at art with openness and curiosity, and practise mindful pauses to bring attention back when the mind wanders into judgemental thoughts. Experiment with the materials of drawing and playful mark-making as a meditative practice, including observational drawing to enhance awareness of the act of looking. Mindfulness is a key element of Buddhist practice, and is now widely applied in secular contexts to improve wellbeing. This weekend aims to show it can also be of great benefit in the production and contemplation of art.

Family workshop at British Library

Enjoy a family workshop celebrating our Buddhism exhibition

Designed for all families who enjoy being curious together.

Take time out of busy life to look, make and relax as a family. Explore a selection of multi-sensory activities, experimenting with sound, mark-making, colour, drawing and collage. You can also choose to take part in a simple meditation exercise, before finishing with our short mindful sculpture walk through the Library.

This event is repeated at 13.00.