Description

Creative Alchemy

Exploring Painting, Collage, Texture and Personal Expression

Awaken your creativity through, transformation and playful exploration.

Four-Week Creative Course

Fridays 6, 13, 20, 27 November 2026
1.30 pm – 4.30 pm
Quaker Meeting House, Winchester

£190

Alchemy is about transformation — taking something ordinary and discovering what else it could become.

That’s the idea behind Creative Alchemy.

We’ll begin with the magic and unpredictability of acrylic pouring. Colour flows, mixes and creates patterns and textures that you could never have planned. Rather than seeing these as finished paintings, we’ll use them as starting points.

We’ll paint and draw into the surfaces, respond to shapes and marks, cut and rearrange sections, add collage and texture, and explore different ways of developing what has already begun.

As the weeks progress, you’ll start to develop a personal project from these experiments. You might be drawn to a particular colour, shape, texture, memory or idea. You may discover something in the work that you hadn’t expected and decide to follow it.

The aim is not to make paintings that look like someone else’s, but to discover a way of working that gradually reveals more of who you are.

The course draws on ideas from intuitive painting and creative practices such as Visual Medicine, the work of Dana Lynne Andersen, and creative thinking around combining painting and collage explored by Rod Judkins, alongside ideas I developed through my earlier Becoming More Me workshops.

But this is not about following someone else’s method.

It’s about experimenting, responding and finding your own way forward.

At the heart of my Awakening Creativity approach is a guided, inspirational way of freeing up your curiosity and playfulness through experimentation, helping you discover a more intuitive and authentic way of seeing, making and being.

You don’t need to know what you want to paint before you begin. In fact, part of the fun is discovering it along the way.

Whether you’re completely new to mixed media or already have plenty of experience, this course gives you time to experiment, develop ideas and take a piece of work somewhere that is genuinely your own.

Throughout the Course You’ll Explore

• Acrylic pouring and creating richly coloured, textured surfaces
• Responding to unexpected marks, shapes and patterns
• Developing poured surfaces through painting, collage and mixed media
• Cutting, layering and reassembling
• Exploring texture, transparency, mark-making and composition
• Finding ideas through observation, imagination and reflection
• Taking experiments into your own personal project and discovering your visual language

How We’ll Work

We’ll start by experimenting rather than trying to make a finished piece.

From these first explorations, you’ll begin to notice what interests you. Perhaps it’s a colour combination, a particular texture, an unexpected shape or something that reminds you of an idea or experience.

We’ll then look at ways of developing those discoveries through painting, collage, drawing and texture.

As the course progresses, you’ll have time to take the work further and begin developing your own personal project, with guidance and encouragement along the way.

There is no single finished outcome to aim for. Your work will develop through the choices you make and the things you discover along the way.

Suitable For

Complete beginners and experienced artists alike who would like to experiment more freely, develop confidence with mixed media and move beyond the fear of the blank page.

What You’ll Gain

By the end of the course you’ll have developed a body of original mixed media work and taken your own ideas further through painting, collage and texture.

You’ll also have new ways of starting a painting, developing an idea and responding to what emerges — rather than always having to know where you’re going before you begin.

What participants say

“I just wanted to say how supportive and freeing I found your workshop.  You are a great teacher. I would highly recommend your workshops to anyone—beginner or established artist. You’ve inspired me to apply for a formal Art qualification—something I never thought I would do.”   Elaine W.

“Exceptional teacher. Lorna created a space that creatively freed me. A deeply enriching experience.”

About Lorna Carmen McNeill

Lorna Carmen McNeill is a mixed media and light artist, teacher and creative process facilitator. She studied Fine Art at Camberwell School of Art, Goldsmiths and The Art Academy, and has taught across higher and further education, the NHS, charitable organisations, community settings and corporate environments.

Her work is rooted in the understanding that creativity is far more than artistic skill—it is a way of being and perceiving, responding to and engaging with the world. Through carefully designed creative processes, Lorna creates supportive and inspiring environments where participants develop artistic confidence, technical skills and a deeper connection with their own innate creativity. As their confidence grows, they discover their own unique way of seeing, responding and making, enabling an authentic visual language to emerge naturally.