My friend bailed so I took my BFF with me, not wanting to waste the free ticket sponsored by Dandenong Library. I thought she might have been too young for it but, whatever. There was a good chance they were going to allow her in anyway because she’s cute.

I’m on a creative journey at the moment. I’m trying to give my inner child all the crayons and art materials that she never really had a lot of, growing up. I’ve amassed quite a decent collection of gouaches, acrylics, watercolours, watercolour pencils, coloured pencils, charcoal pencils, brushes… you name it, I probably have it.

And I’m still pretty shit.

Which is alright. I mean, we all start from somewhere. This is my ground zero and I honour where I’m at in my journey for creative self-expression. I find writing and art journaling a sacred space to just be one with the chaos of my thoughts.

So I thought I’d join in this particular art workshop. A crash course, if you will. The class was taught by artist Nusra Latif Qureshi. Basically, it was all about tracing images on paper to create an assortment of random and mixed visuals and then coloring it to your heart’s fancy.

The trick, Nusra said, was to not fixate on tracing just one image. Go all out! Trace whatever catches your eye! Arrange the figures on a whim! Don’t think too much about the finished product!

Which was exactly what I did, given the little amount of time.

I wasn’t a big fan of the tracing bit, though. But I went wild with my watercolor as it was my first time to try painting the medium on a proper watercolor paper. It was fun to watch the colours bleed into each other. Not so much when they bled outside the water lines.

Raven, on the other hand, did well in following the instructions, much as they were catered mainly for adults. By the end of it, she decided to screw the guidelines and pretty much did her own thing.

Good girl.

*Raven at 6 years old