Where it all began.

First Conscious Creativity Activity Colouring-In Book

Hi.  My name is Jody Arnold, and I am a Creative Practitioner at Australian Art Creativity Studio.

I am the design and creator of the innovative 'Creative Breakthroughs Program' and ‘Conscious Creativity Colouring-In Collection’ – a series of conscious colouring-in resources for therapeutic value.

I understand that I am not the first to come up with a colouring-in book as an art therapy resource, but I have noticed that there needed to be more of the holistic kind on the market. Art has always been a core value in my life. In fact, before we all coined it as a phenomenon of recent years, art therapy has been in my life since I was a small child.

Back then in the 70’s it wasn’t known as art therapy. As a child to me, I called it my art escapism. Over the years, not only did it shape my identity as a person but also saw me through some very challenging times.

Coming from a heavily involved artisan family, it was inevitable that artistry would wash onto me. With heritage roots set in European aristocracy, it was a hard act to follow. In my early years I felt that I was before my time yet armed with all the natural talent of a yesteryear which was no longer relevant in the modern working world. I didn’t know what it was I wanted to be or do, and while most people have that kind of thing sorted before they finished school, I was still floundering around in my mid 40’s trying to find the purpose for my latent talents.

It wasn’t until the covid pandemic occurred that I dropped all modern distractions and fell back into my saviour.

When the pandemic occurred, I was at a bad place with my creativity, I had lost all passion for it by then, but the severe global impact of the disease meant that I was forced to live with myself and like for most people at the time, it was the reality circuit breaker needed to take stock of who I was and the meaning of my life.

And because creativity is my outlet and my sanity during insecurity or environmental madness, it took a $4 colouring-in book from the local department store, and a packet of ordinary middle-range quality textas during an supermarket impulse buy, for me to be drawn back into the childhood grace which was there to help me pass the time during lockdown.

Some people gathered jigsaw puzzles; I gathered colouring in books. Suddenly it became a central thing to manage my anxiety…. Focussing on the colouring in distracted me from the doomsday thoughts that naturally at the time kept trying to sabotage my psyche. Before I knew it, my collection of colouring-in books grew almost as big as my actual library of literature.

Realising I needed a space to house all these books and textas from the kitchen table, I ended up making myself a colouring in space in the spare bedroom and before I knew it, I was completing several images a day just to cope with the intense demands of government enforced pandemic isolation. The autonomy I thought I had lost over the years with neglecting my skills, started coming back, much like remembering how to ride a bike, and before I knew it, I was falling in love with my natural creativity again.

Being a bohemian by nature and personality, meant that as my humble colouring in space grew into the space of a studio, during the pandemic times I started inadvertently gathering other resources to help manage my mental and physiological health while I was colouring-in. I honestly never gave much thought to it, just instinct mostly took control at that stage.

The aromatics were reintroduced, the music and soundscapes were brought into the space where I was spending most of my time, and the next thing I knew, I was experiencing a whole new depth of conscious creativity which felt nurturing and supportive, filling an empty void of distortion that negativity would have otherwise consumed.

Definitely much more defined and equipped space than the bedroom floor of a 4-year-old back in the day.

It created an atmosphere of relaxation that allowed my mind to purge all the toxic I had bottled inside, out into the colouring-in books, and soon enough I was starting to have an open mind with flowing healthier thoughts and the occasional self-aware epiphany that would end up getting scribbled down in a nearby journal.

For me, since small, colouring-in was a self-soothing coping mechanism for escaping or surviving ongoing various forms of trauma through-out life. Now, post covid pandemic, it is about empowerment and disciplined emotional and mental health self-management.

Finally, my purpose for my once redundant archaic talents, now had new meaning and purpose in a modern world. Moving with the digital age and taking advantage of technology meant that my seemingly haunting artisan ancestral DNA could finally evolve and be reinvented.

Yes colouring-in is therapeutic, but on the quest to understand more, my natural curiosity led me to investigating the science of what was happening to me during these creative times.

For the 2 years of lock down that we had to experience, time on my hands gave me plenty of opportunity to research, investigate, experiment and test theories of whether there was more depth on offer to colouring-in than the motions of filling up a piece of paper and then moving on to something else with my time, energy and lingering state of mind.

Consequently, I started the first draft of the colouring-in book back in 2020.

Back then, I called it 'Mindful Matters', and despite talking about it almost daily to close friends, it sat on my hard drive for a long time neglected as the demands of my ailing veteran father were becoming prevalent.

It was when my father suddenly unexpectedly became ill and passed away in 2021 that the responsibility I had been made to endure for him being cared for during a time of avoidance for the more responsible others, that in order to cope with the heavy weight of being his only round the clock caregiver for the most part of his dying process, I became magnetised to the colouring in book I started creating previously; and so the 'Mindful Matters Patterns Of Colour, Colouring-In Book - Standard' became like an art version of a visual art therapy thesis.

Naturally, the one role model who had a genuine interest and encouraging proud belief in my abilities throughout life, my father, needed to be featured in the dedicatory.

When he asked me on his deathbed during his dying days, about what it was I wanted to do in life if I didn’t have to run around the last 40 years after my parents in their constant severe dysfunction, I replied that I had wanted to be a computer animator back in 1991, but now these days being a simple art tutor or teacher would bring me happiness and peace.

To my surprise, he exclaimed quite passionately that I needed to turn my back on all the toxic surrounding me, live my life for myself and do the things that I always wanted to do but never given the chance because of others demands, manipulations and dramas - now he was ‘leaving’.

Consequently ‘Mindful Matters Colouring-In Book, Patterns Of Colour’ - now rebranded as 'Conscious Creativity Patterns Of Colour' - is the representation of art therapy in its truest form and an embodiment of that significant moment in my life as a person and not just an artist.

I completed the standard edition during my early grief, and it saw me through some personal significant exceptionally difficult life upheavals during its construction in that time. Through a succession of coincidences with strangers in public, the standard edition became diversified into what it is now.

As a resource, it gently guides you through a passage of developing creativity art skills and mindset that has an actual science backed effect on one’s physiological and psychological state; most of the time without realising it until you do suddenly find yourself experiencing new waves of self-introspection seemingly quite by accident.

This is because when coupled with certain sensory elements at play while you colour, networks of sensory triggers make various interconnections with each other that the unconscious becomes aware of and impacts different layers of human existence, promoting a deeper and more meaningful aware cognitive autonomy.

With the Conscious Creativity Breakthroughs Program at Australian Art Creativity Studio, it’s no longer just about guessing at colour before you or having the temporary satisfaction of just completing an image for that small egocentric self-esteem boost. It’s not even just about temporary relaxation or busywork.

Seriously practice the therapy of this Conscious Creativity Breakthroughs Program routinely with dedication and for long enough in time to inadvertently open up the creative neurological pathways, and the holistic effects becomes more conscious, allowing more autonomy in the process, which then leads to greater long-term awareness and self-control in mood management that creates harmonising balance instead of rocking the already polarised states of being.

‘Conscious Creativity Colouring, Patterns Of Colour’ is what this is. Next level after art therapy. The Creative Breakthroughs Program is the bridge between Art Therapy based discoveries and Conscious Creativity expressive outcomes.

The Creative Breakthroughs Program and its offerings through workshops and publications is not a hit and miss attempt at fighting boredom. Not even about enabling or endorsing a temporary addictive endorphin rush that typically comes with what people in general associate as mindfulness art.

The terms 'mindfulness' and ‘art therapy’ is arguably becoming mostly an advertising slogan and used much too freely for anyone who wishes to publish a book of their beautiful drawings genuinely designed for relaxation, but without the actual clinical dialogue or attribute that is necessary to procure a true science backed transformative therapeutic art therapy experience.

Art therapy is prescribed, it is a science of balance, cause and effect, and there for the long-term growth of lasting endorphins; not the rush of a high followed by a crash and burn typically experienced from general mindfulness colouring-in book experiences.

I have been through more than what most people have to deal with in life, and over the years people have asked me how I have kept strong, sane and when I am not at my best sometimes, how I manage to bounce back so quickly. Over, and over again once they discover what it is I am about.

Honestly, it is due to the holistic conscious colouring-in art therapy process. It’s been working for me for since the 1970s and has worked for those who have randomly tested prototype designs of the collection… so if it helps more people, it should be shared.

And it is with that, my once humble introverted personal spare room creative space evolved into the Australian Art Creativity Studio; garnering its own public accessible building in Charley's Cottage, and now gently integrating as workshops into local communities..

I am proud and excited to be able to share something positive and creative to others in the hopes that my experiences may help someone else recognise and embrace their own creativity. This is what brings me happiness and joy in life, and I thank all who have taken an enthusiastic interest as well as those who took the chance to explore what I have created by supporting the purchase of anything related to the studio.

I look forward to being of service to my fellow colouring-in enthusiasts and always interested in feedback into what it is about colouring-in you would like to see be developed for you in the future.

Take care, and much love.