My dear friend Kim McElroy and I just returned from our Drawn to Wild Horses workshop benefiting the wild horses and burros at Return to Freedom,  located in Lompoc, California. I admit to feeling like I got most of the benefits   We had so many incredible experiences that I didn’t know which one to write about first, however… yesterday, while humming and hawing,  I got an email from Lee Harrigan, a member of the Drawn to Wild Horses human herd, and in it she shared a photo she took of one of the masterpieces she created while at RTF. This particular piece is an example of the kind of visual expression that can be created using one of my favourite expressive arts activities called Leonardo’s Device.  As I upload my photos from the trip I will share more examples of how Leonardo inspired us, inviting our creative nature to run free in the company of wild horses.

Visual images have always been an important part of how we communicate and they have often been used as a form of language in many cultures. The use of images as words birthed the long history of using art to tell stories.  By nature, we are storytelling beings. To be human is to have a story to tell.  The images we create are reflections of our experiences, of ourselves, and contain the stories of our lives.

LEONARDO’S DEVICE

The Leonardo Device is a deceptively simple technique that can help us tap into the creative and healing images of our own stories. The device came to Leonardo one day when he was looking at a wall spotted with stains and cracks. The lines and shapes inspired him to imagine landscapes with mountains, rivers, rocks and trees, and fantasy scenes with strange figures and faces. Leonardo observed that these random lines and shapes on the wall were like the sounds of bells in whose ringing one might hear a word or name. When I describe this technique to children, I akin it to looking for pictures in the clouds, a game so many of us played while growing up. What Leonardo discovered was a way to enter and use the unconscious as a creative source for spontaneity, self-expression, and inner knowing. This technique can help us reconnect with our wellspring of intuition and imagination, symbolic and synchronous images, and our artistic creativity even if we have never created with art materials before.

Feel free to experiment with a variety of media. I used pastel for the first time during Drawn to Wild Horses and I just loved the way the colour could be blended and added to.  Such a freeing media and so tactile and fun.

If you’re like me, you’ll find that after doing just one Leonardo, you’ll never look at things the same way for every surface or pattern contains imagery.  It is also interesting to pay attention to whether or not the same images appear over and over… do the images relate to each other in a certain way… is there a recurring theme in what you see or is there a life span to certain images?  Have fun becoming a child again and make art for the pure joy of it – and if you can get creative in the company of horses… well how does it get better than that?