

Single-purpose Vision Board
Yesterday, I was teaching Art Meditation at Kozuka Art Festival. Before the event I was feeling quite nervous – my Japanese is not good enough; I am not a member of this clique of organisers – the usual ego freak-out that I feel when trying a new endeavor. I’m sure I am not alone in that.

Fortunately, I have a secret weapon that I use to help me face my fears and realise there are positive outcomes. While I drank my morning coffee, I drew a vision board in the Feng Shui style that I learned in 2014.

Each of the nine sections represents a feng shui concept. By putting pen and paint to paper, it helped me to realise what I wanted (and what I didn’t want)
- Wealth (purple): lots of coins
- Reputation (red): my booth to be appreciated
- Relationships (pink): making connections
- Health (green): ending the day better than I started
- Good Fortune (yellow): me being myself
- Creativity (white) : colorful blossoming
- Knowledge (teal): neurons firing
- Career (blue): bursting forth
- Helpful People (silver): especially with wealth, health and career
To keep them in my mind as the day continued, I tucked the drawing under the table cover so it was visible. While I never looked closely at the drawing again, I caught sight of it peeking out from under my clipboard and materials and it felt reassuring.
And the day turned out well, except for health. I ended the day in more pain than I began it. But otherwise, it went very much like I drew it in the vision board.
Dive deeper:
How to make a Feng Shui vision board
2014 Envision Board
My Kozuka Art Festival experience
More Articles
Colorful Satellites
If you want to tangle up your brain and give your conscious mind a lot to focus on while your subconscious gets insight on a problem, this Drawing Meditation is for you. You'll be developing a framed space then layering colors over one another using a couple of simple...
Ribbons & Lines
Slow and steady repetition deepens mindfulness while the quirks of each artist's "ribbon" arrangement allow for personal expression and problem solving that keeps engagement high. This is an excellent way to relax your mind, reset your mood, or refocus your busy...
Art & Nature Retreats 2025
Join Kristen McQuillin for a relaxing and creative day of insightful art, observation, and reflection in rural Chiba. Saturday, November 1, 2025 11:00 - 16:00 Schedule 11:00 pickup at JR Awa-Kamogawa station11:30 Drawing Meditation: pattern-making &...
Coming (not too) Soon: More Workbooks!
One of my 2024 goals is to publish Drawing Meditation exercises. We have three workbooks now, but I have scores of exercises and meditations to share. Workbooks are my favorite medium, so that is what I plan. But they are old-fashioned and don't sell well. Every time...
Neurographic Art in Circles
Neurographic art is a way to settle your mind into a meditative state through repetition. It's easy, takes no practice or skill, and no matter what you do it looks pretty cool. It was developed by Pavel Piskarev, a Russian psychologist, in 2014. As with all our...
Artober 2021: 31-day art challenge
Want to add more art to your autumn? I've got 31 creative prompts scheduled for each day in October on our Facebook page and on Instagram. Some prompts are simply text, others may have instructions, examples, or even a video. How to do the challenge The only rule to...
Creating happy moments with yoga and drawing
In addition to teaching art & meditation, I lead a yoga class every morning. On the 3rd Sunday of the month, I combine Drawing Meditation and Satoyama Yoga. Today we created fanciful drawings based on our movement in Sun Salutations and Warrior Flow. Elephant...
Watercolor universes
I have a special request for an upcoming private session and today I spent some time playing with the materials. My lovely student has watercolor pencils and wants to do a cosmos sky. I've created night skies in acrylic pant and in colored pencil but not in...
Connecting with Canada
"Greetings appropriate to time of day," says a friend of mine when he connects on Zoom calls. I felt that myself in today's class, which was a private Tangle Art session with a community group in Canada. For them, it was Tuesday evening; for me, Wednesday morning....
Where are your art supplies?
Where do you keep your art supplies? Neatly packed up on a shelf? Tucked away in a closet? Or are the in front of you everyday where you can reach for them? If you want to get benefit of something - art supplies or any other thing - you need to keep it where you can...