This is a workshop 3-3.5 hours of tuition, in 2 parts
The first is an hour-long video that will be prerecorded & uploaded to your curriculum on 24 May, in which I'll teach you about:
At the end of this hour long video you will have a thorough understanding of this mental state and be able to seek out ways to trigger it in your own brain in order to alleviate anxiety & lift your mood.
In the second part of the workshop we'll meet via zoom at 6.30pm BST on Saturday 24th May to create an arrangement of aesthetically pleasing items similar to the ones you are likely to have seen in my photos on Twitter or Bluesky, over the course of 2-2.5 hours. This may be a range of nature finds or other found objects that you may already have such as marbles, beads, pebbles etc.
During the first 15-20 minutes I'll introduce you to how this process will shift your mind into flow and what will happen to your brain biochemistry as we create our collections (though this will only be a bullet point-level explanation-far less detailed than the explanation in the hour-long video).
We'll then begin to sort and arrange our collection, slowly and steadily and I'll give you lots of tips on how to do this. The process of creating a visually pleasing arrangement like this is very effective for putting your brain into flow and it's likely that you'll feel more relaxed and uplifted afterwards.
If possible we'll take photos of our arrangements because my own research shows that simply looking at them afterwards can also have a beneficial effect on a person's mental health.
This is a workshop suitable for complete beginners.
Before the course: I'll message you with lots of tips on gathering together a collection of items that you will be arranging during the zoom session. There may also be small collections of beautiful found objects available beforehand in my Etsy shop-if you buy a space you'll get an exclusive discount for my shop.
Emma Mitchell is an author, mental health advocate, naturalist, professional illustrator and designer-maker. She studied Natural Sciences at Cambridge, spent time in academia studying molecular cell biology and was an technology consultant in emerging technologies in Silicon Fen until 2008, when her struggles with depression and anxiety led her to begin writing about the positive impact of both nature and time spent creatively on mental health.
Emma has written and presented films for BBC Springwatch and appeared on BBC Countryfile, Radio 4's Woman's Hour and Ramblings. She is a Guardian Country Diarist and has contributed pieces on nature and mental health for the Times, Big Issue, inews & Psychologies magazine.
Workshops
Emma has been teaching creative workshops with a focus on mental health for more than a decade. She taught Anita Rani to cast yarrow in silver on BBC Countryfile and has taught classes at the Victoria & Albert museum, Cambridge University Botanic Gardens and Highgrove.
In Emma's classes students learn the techniques needed to make and draw beautiful things, but crucially she combines this with teaching the science that explains why and how spending time creatively can shift brain biochemistry to improve mental health.
