In addition to offering painting retreats in various parts of the country, I also hold Painting From The Wild Heart weekend workshops here at my studio in Oakland, California -- located just across the street from beautiful, historic Lake Merritt, where the oldest bird sanctuary in the United States resides.
These mini-retreats are held in a charming and intimate painting studio, a beautiful space that allows participants to feel very comfortable and at home. The weekend format is extremely popular because it gives you an experience of the intensity and creative depth of a longer retreat, but with less of a time commitment and greater affordability.
(Click here for schedule and pricing information.)
For people who live in the Bay Area, these weekend workshops offer an opportunity to passionately dive into the intuitive painting process during the day and be in their own bed at night. And for people coming from out of town, it is a chance to not only experience the healing power of the expressive arts, but also an opportunity to visit the beautiful San Francisco Bay Area.
These workshops are limited to 12 participants. This fosters a sense of dynamic, creative community as well as allowing each person plenty of individual attention.
These retreats offer a very rich and nurturing environment that truly supports your unique creative unfolding. Here is the timeless experience of intensive painting -- where you get to fully immerse yourself in the magic of image, form and color and your own creative flow.
The large, spacious studio offers abundant art supplies including a wide array of paints (and also many colors of glitter), floor to ceiling easels, a varied assortment of palettes and brushes, and large sheets of high quality paper -- everything you could possibly need to keep you happily painting away for hours on end!
Three meals are provided during the weekend. The food is healthy (lots of whole grains, vegetables, fruit, chicken and fish) and delicious, made with love and creative flair. And there is always one completely outrageous dessert!
Each morning of the retreat we take some time to loosen up and get out of our heads and into our bodies through a fun and gentle process that includes movement, dance and bodywork.
This workshop will give you plenty of encouragement to joyfully and spontaneously express all of who you are in a wonderfully safe and supportive environment.
Throughout the weekend there will be opportunities to be open heartedly witnessed for your unique creative self in sacred circles of healing and compassion.
And finally, you get to be part of a growing community of fun loving, lively and creative Wild Heart painters!
TESTIMONIALS:
"The weekend non-residential retreat was a good way to spend a quiet, meditative weekend after a hectic work week: time with oneself, painting in an environment shared with others who are on a similar journey inward. Great people, great food, and Chris' support on a wondrous journey into putting colors, shapes, images and glitter on paper!"
-- Anne
"This past weekend allowed me to stop and get in touch with those parts of myself that are hidden by the busyness of life. I got in touch with both the joyous parts of me and the parts that are painful and need nurturing and love. It is only through taking time for myself through retreats such as these that I can truly explore my life journey and how to live each day with full appreciation. Chris, I can't thank you enough for the work that you do and support that you provide to me along the way. I am blessed to have the opportunity to paint in your presence."
-- Rachel
"When I got home with my paintings I put them on the wall in my studio and marveled at the energy in them, compared to the rest of my work. I'm a believer."
-- Shirley
"The breakthroughs that I experience again and again at the Painting from the Wild Heart retreats continue to stun and amaze me. Chris creates a safe, nurturing and loving environment that overflows with unconditional acceptance and trust. In painting as well as processing, the participants are encouraged to hold nothing back and all that pours forth from us is witnessed and held as the sacred offering that it is. The painting process has a mysterious way of bypassing the mind, the censors, the ego, the defenses, and what comes through is astonishing in its purity and wisdom. I have experienced an enormous amount of healing and growth in the two years that I have been painting and processing with Chris. She is a modern-day shaman and a great gift to those of us on the path toward healing and wholeness and yearning to live in the fullness of our creativity."
-- Debby
Dear Chris,
I would like to share with you why I love the non-residential retreats. The people who seem to come to these retreats are the people who know from the inside out the true meaning of creativity ... that for me means being accepted along with my art for exactly who I am, where I am, and what it looks like with all my frailties hanging out all over the place. You create a safe environment that nourishes the soul and heals the heart. The group process allows the critic to dissolve like butter.
When I see art flowing out of others that reveals their true spirit, I know I have come home and I am in the right place. Your painting studio is warm, inviting, and comfortable and I appreciate all the natural light. I love having so many varied mediums available to me including the pastel crayons, glitters, and acrylics as well as the tempera paints.
Having a young child of my own makes the non-residential retreats perfect for me because I can check in at home yet still take the time to nurture myself ... something I don't do often enough. Thank you for providing me with so much love and encouragement to become who I am today as an artist and as an individual, for they are too intertwined to separate.
My deepest gratitude and love,
-- June
"Magical things happen as Chris gently, firmly, playfully, and intuitively guides you to discover insights, talents, and metamorphosis possible in your life. She creates an atmosphere that is profound, challenging, and fun. Give yourself the gift of stretching through art. You needn't have picked up a brush in your life to benefit from her workshops."
-- Meg
"After my first Wild Heart painting retreat at Chris’s magical and funky studio in Oakland, I returned home in a state of exhaustion and amazement. For the first time since then, I just unfurled the paintings I made during that weekend, and am once again stunned at what the intuitive painting process elicited from me. In the inspiring company of several other Wild Heart painters (some new to the journey like me, some seasoned veterans), guided with sensitivity, compassion, and respect by Chris, I was able to slip out of that seemingly relentless verbal and analytical state of consciousness and into the shadowland of the subconscious, where images and symbols flowed from paint to paintbrush to paper. There is something tremendously liberating about being able to spend two and a half days painting and attending to one’s own emotional and creative needs minus the usual and multiple distractions of daily living. Chris makes it so easy to do just that. I can’t wait to come back."
-- Tracy Fulton
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
"My experience in Chris Zydel's weekend workshop was beyond delicious! As a professional writer, I'm very familiar with the creative process, but by partnering with Chris under her mindful guidance, I opened to my creativity in ways I've never experienced, and didn't know possible. Her availability to each painter is respectful and mindful. She's intuitively aware of each painter's individual approach and needs--she met me exactly where I was and encouraged me to stretch myself. I did so because it was safe. What a gift the whole experience was. And I can't believe how much fun I had! I can't wait for the next opportunity to paint with her. Five words: Love it, highly recommend it!"
-- Kristine Maas
Writer and Artist
"I came all the way from Ohio for this painting retreat since we have nothing like it in my area. It was exactly what I was hoping it would be. The studio, Chris, and the women in the group ... I felt so at home and comfortable and supported the whole weekend. I have found myself expanding in so many ways as a result of this process. I am more gracious with myself, more forgiving of myself, and much more open to adventure and possibility. I have been practicing this process on my own in Ohio since I have been back. I have found myself looking at the world in more vivid color as I allow myself the time to create just for creation's sake. The painting doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to mean anything ... the freedom that I have felt in alot of other areas of my life has been such a gift. It has been teaching me that I am free to be ME and that ME is a good thing to offer to the world. What a breakthrough. I can be who I am regardless of what other people think. I am becoming comfortable with being me. It is amazing how putting a little bit of paint on a brush and applying it to paper can transform your old thinking patterns into beautiful new adventures."
-- Megan B.
Thank you so much for a wonderful workshop. It was so great to have the space to explore my inner world ...
I learned a lot from what you said before the class started -- the fact that this type of painting is about UNlearning -- deprogramming ourselves, removing the conditioning and deeply imbedded core beliefs that limit us from moving forward. And I loved the part about feeding the intuition and starving the Critic -- I have found lately that I need a lot of alone time to really tune in to my intuition and ask myself if what I am doing is what I want to be doing.
What struck me most about what you said was about BEING as opposed to PERFORMING. I used to work as a professional singer and, although I enjoyed it a lot of the time, a change occurred in the last 2 years of my career, and I stopped loving it.
You helped me to understand that I lost my voice because my body was tired -- tired of constantly having to be someone else in order to be seen, recognized and acknowledged.
Thanks again, Chris -- your workshop is always a powerful experience.
-- Sonika
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