What was the creative workshop?
I attended a free Skillshare workshop on Thursday 28th September. This took place online, with many people from around the world all coming together as one to utilise this time to spark creative habits. The session was led by Neha Modi, an artist, educator and mindfulness practitioner. The session was split into four sections:
. Chatting
. 5 mins of meditation music / drawing activity
. 25 mins of creative freedom
. 5 mins Q&A with Neha
This allowed us to learn about Neha, her practice and her process.
Neha's Insights
Neha’s comparison of meditation and creativity was very moving. As someone who does yoga as a form of meditation, the connections she made were interesting. Having ADHD, I personally find it difficult to sit still and clear my mind, it almost feels impossible. However, Neha describes drawing as meditation. Spending 15-20 mins drawing and clearing her mind each day allows her to feel grounded and at peace. I found this exploration intriguing as it is very different from the expectations I have of meditation. The idea that Neha described was drawing shapes in a repetitive pattern in order to feel relaxed and grounded. The constant movement when drawing the shape becomes natural and eases the mind. In yoga and meditation the phrase “Your breath is your anchor” is recited several times to redirect your mind to your breath, and away from other thoughts. Neha redirected this to the pen in your hand. The pen you are using is your anchor and so this is what grounds you and focuses your brain. However, as most creatives, we judge our drawings or artistic pieces very harshly, maintaining an expectation for ourselves. “It’s not the right shape”, “I need to redraw this”, “This doesn’t look right”, “I need to start again”, or “It’s not good enough”. Neha describes this perfectly by saying “We don’t judge our breath in meditation, therefore we shouldn’t judge our drawing either”. We aren’t looking for perfection, we are drawing to create and feel at peace, this isn’t about how it looks at the end, it’s how we feel. She also explained that drawing with a pen prevents us from rubbing out our progression and starting again, using the pen allows those “mistakes” to stay and be part of the piece. We spent some of our time in this session to practice this technique along with Neha.
What the task was
Once the presentation had finished, it was time to start the 5-minute meditation. In most Skillshare workshops, this is time to sit with our thoughts with sounds in the background, however, after the powerful talk from Neha, we used this time to try the drawing meditation practice. I found this extremely settling and time went by very fast in comparison to ‘normal’ meditation, which I can find restraining and exhausting. Keeping my mind quiet with no other distractions is frustrating and I become self-critical of my own brain and thoughts. Neha started this meditation by asking each of us to pick up any object in the house and draw either the whole thing or an aspect of it. This is what I chose to draw in these 5 minutes of meditation.

Once these 5 minutes were finished, we were free to work on anything we wanted. Some people continued working on the meditation drawing, some spent this time practicing an instrument. I spent the rest of the time working on the Inktober drawings which I have started over on my Instagram.
After the 25 minutes of creative freedom there was an opportunity for a Q&A. Neha had some really insightful answers to all of these questions and ended the session on such a positive!
What I learned
I learned a lot during this session. I initially booked this workshop to set time for myself to work on something creative (other than work) 😆 along with others to inspire me. However, this session gave me so much more, teaching me about the connection between meditation and creativity. New ways I can meditate, and working on mindfulness and grounding can help with creativity each day.
Would I recommend
I would 10000% recommend this to others. Skillshare has other workshops on Eventbrite, some are free but have a look on their page.
Also please please please follow Neha on her Instagram. You can also book other workshops she is doing to learn about her practice. Maybe see you there?
What are your thoughts?
Comment below, have you tried this technique?
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