Leïla Alice Smith is a former artist and educator that now works as an Art director in film and TV. She is also beginning to explore somatic therapies and other modalities to explore trauma release through creative practices, and hopes to contribute to creative communities where safe spaces are created for people to explore their traumas safely and through fun and healing projects!

In this workshop we will use ink as a reveal medium over white paint. It’s an exploration of light and dark, about exploring how both spaces, both tones, both emotions and feelings can coexist. The final result explores how together, the contrast and the qualities of both light and dark can equally reveal something else, something more beautiful and more detailed. We often describe times associated with grief as a darkness and when we come ‘out of it’ so to speak we have then found the lightness of being again.

Light only exists in contrast to darkness and it is only when light appears through the darkness do we appreciate how beautiful and bright it is, and how that darkness taught us how to see, or feel something new.

Using white gesso paint as the first layer you will create a pattern or shapes and think about negative space. We will then let this dry and coat the whole page in black ink, making it all disappear for a moment. Once the ink is dry it is washed off to reveal a new work, new textures and shapes that couldn’t be seen before.