Exploring colour and creativity through the chakras

Jul 4
3 min read

I LOVE colour, it fascinates, stimulates, and excites me.

As Chagall said 'Colour is everything'. I have thought about this - a lot.

As a result this summer I'm hosting in-person and online workshops that explore how colour can unlock our creativity. My 40 years of studying psychology, painting, and energetics culminate in this exploration.

The Energy Centres - the Chakras

Understanding the energies associated with the chakra centres can be a powerful creative tool, as it offers different entry points for expression.

Instead of trying to “come up with an idea,” you can begin with a felt sense in the body and let that shape that appears on the page or canvas.

Each centre offers a slightly different creative quality:

The lower centres (root and sacral) support embodiment and flow — helping you feel grounded enough to start, and fluid enough to let go of control. This is often where resistance loosens and the first marks become easier.
The middle centres (solar plexus and heart) open up expression and relationship — confidence to make bolder choices, and sensitivity to colour, connection, and emotional resonance. This is often where a painting starts to feel “alive” rather than planned.
The upper centres (throat, third eye, crown) bring clarity, intuition, and spaciousness — helping you step back from overthinking, trust instinct, and allow meaning to emerge rather than be forced.

From a creative perspective, this matters because most blocks in art aren’t technical — they’re energetic in the sense of how we are relating to ourselves while we create. Too much tension, and nothing moves. Too much control, and nothing surprises us. Too much dissociation, and nothing feels real.

Working through these centres (even simply as a reflective framework) gives you a way to notice:

Where am I holding back?
Where am I trying to control the outcome?
Where do I feel open, curious, or alive?

And then you can respond through paint rather than analysis.

The benefit isn’t that the chakras “cause” creativity — it’s that they offer a map of your inner state while you create. And when you can see that map clearly, you can gently shift yourself back into flow: more grounded, more open, more willing to experiment.

In that sense, creativity becomes less about effort, and more about alignment — noticing where energy is stuck or flowing, and letting colour help move it again.

Finding your colour

Responding through paint rather than analysis

🌈 The Colour – what it invites in you.

🌿 The Element – the quality to explore - air, earth, water, fire .....
✨ An Intention – a simple focus
❓A Question – something to carry into the painting... what flows, what burns, what freezes, what is still....
🎨 A Painting Invitation – open-ended, with no "right" answer.
📖 A Reflection – journalling or sharing afterwards.
🌙 A Small Practice – something to take into daily life after the workshop.

Painting through the landscapes

Because my work is innately connected to the Welsh landscape, it makes sense to me that each chakra also has a natural companion.

Root — ancient rocks, cliffs, earth.
Sacral — rivers, tides, rain.
Solar Plexus — sunlight on the sea, gorse, midsummer warmth.
Heart — woodlands, moss, spring leaves.
Throat — sky, wind, birdsong.
Third Eye — twilight, moonlight, mist.
Crown — stars, horizon, vast open sea.

This makes the workshop experience unmistakably unique. People joining me are not just painting chakras—they'd be painting through the landscapes that have shaped their own lives and imagination.

Paint * Magic - The Chakras, is where the real magic begins. 🌈✨ Join me. https://www.helenelliott.net/paintmagic