Creative renewal – beach art

Connecting to your creative energy is one way of practising self-care and renew your energy as a helping professional.

Making art can give you a space to set aside your concerns and worries, immerse yourself in an activity that is both relaxing and challenging, and rediscover the joy (and fun) of making something by hand. Making art when at the beach is a wonderful way to do this.

If you find yourself at the beach, here are some ideas to get creative but remember to be safe and always check tide times.

Sand art – taking a stick or using your fingers, hands and/or feet there is nothing quite like making art on damp sand; making patterns, mandalas, images of any kind as big or small, simple or as complex, as you like.

Pebble sculptures – if you are on a pebbly beach how about building sculptures using pebbles on the beach. This immersive creative process means we find it very difficult to think about anything else especially when trying to get one pebble to balance on top of another!

Please remember that in the UK it is prohibited to remove pebbles from most beaches so please make sure you leave your sculptures behind. They will make a wonderful surprise for others to find and perhaps encourage them to make their own pebble sculptures.

Because beach art is made in nature it is ephemeral art. This means accepting the temporariness of what you create and simply enjoying the experience.  Which can be a wonderfully freeing experience. It can also be a way to let go of and leave behind things that are no longer serving you.

Find out more about why making time for creative renewal is so important for us as helping professionals in my post Creative renewal – making time for art.