Mindfulness Painting with Sara McQueenie

Come join us for a free art workshop for people with diverse and complex mental health. Afternoon tea provided.

What is an Enso?

In Zen Buddhist Tradition the Enso, the circular form, is a circle hand drawn or painted in one or two uninhibited brushstrokes in one breath. It expresses a moment when the mind is free to let the body create.

The Enso symbolises absolute enlightenment, strength, elegance, the universe, and mu (the void). The Enso can be drawn anywhere, any time.

What to expect from this workshop:

• Learn about the history of an Enso and why it might be useful for us.
• Find out about the process of making an Enso using brush and paint on paper.
• Complete a short meditation incorporating breath work. It’s an opportunity to pause, connect and reflect.
• Sara will then show you the process of breathe in, hold, splat the paint, breathe out making the circle in one sweeping motion.
• When we splat the paint initially on the paper, we are to make a noise, using our voice, it expels the held air but also puts our energy into the circle.
• Each of us will then practice this process.
• We will explore different memories and see how the circle may differ.

The tools and mechanics of drawing or painting the Enso:

The circle may be open or closed. When the circle is incomplete, it allows for movement and development. Zen practitioners relate the idea to wabi-sabi, the beauty of perfection in imperfection. When the circle is closed, it represents perfection, akin to Plato’s perfect form. In simple terms Plato believed that forms are divine. Their connection to divinity is what makes forms perfect: they lack the flaws of humans and of the physical realm. They are of a higher order of existence than their physical representations.

Sara McQueenie practices this modality in a contemporary form and her own perfection in imperfection. She is redefining her physical form, the labels that are placed on her and expressing our individual energetic divinity through art.