A 12-week Artist Development Course
CREATIVE
SHIFT
2026
Deepen your understanding of yourself, your creative process, and the many elements that shape your work.
Earlybird £770 save £125
Host: Sally-Anne Ashley
12
12 Weeks / 10 modules + 2 rest weeks
weekly
lessons to watch, read and tasks to complete
2 live
discussions each week, recorded
studio
exercises and prompts throughout
12 months
access to all material and recordings
What is
CREATIVE SHIFT?
Many artists spend years making work without ever being given the opportunity to properly reflect on how they work, why they work the way they do, or what may be shaping the decisions they make in the studio.
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CREATIVE SHIFT was designed to make space for that deeper inquiry.
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Rather than teaching techniques of how to paint like somebody else, the course helps you build a stronger connection to your own visual language, decision-making, materials, curiosities, patterns, and creative instincts - so that your work begins to feel more intentional, aligned, and deeply your own.
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Through reflection, discussion, practical creative exercises, and ongoing observation, the course invites artists to develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their process, and the work they feel drawn to make.
Who it's for?
Painters, textile artists, mixed media artists, printmakers, photographers, illustrators, ceramicists, and creatives working across many different disciplines. No particular style, medium, or level of experience required.
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Develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their work, and their creative practice​explore their relationship with creativity more consciously​build greater awareness around their process, patterns, instincts, and decision-making.
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Reconnect with what feels meaningful, important, or creatively alive to them​
experiment, question, notice, and stay curious within their practice​​
strengthen their connection to their own visual language, materials, ideas, and creative voice.
How it works
Notice, question, ponder, reflect - bring awareness and clarity to all areas of your creative practice.
New content is released each Monday across the 12 weeks - 10 modules plus 2 intentional rest and integration weeks. Each module combines reflective inquiry, practical creative exercises, and studio-based prompts designed to help you explore the weekly themes within your own practice.
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Alongside the modules there are two live group discussion sessions each week, held on different days and times to accommodate participants across time zones. Many artists discover that hearing others articulate experiences similar to their own helps normalise the thoughts, uncertainties, patterns, and creative questions they may have previously carried alone.
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The rest weeks allow time to pause, absorb, revisit, and notice what may be unfolding naturally within your work - with full access to all material and recordings remaining available for 12 months.
" I wanted clarity and confidence."
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"I wanted to reconnect with my art practice."
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"I wanted to know who I was as an artist."
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"I wanted to be clearer and braver with my direction."
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"I wanted a framework around my practice."
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"I wanted to develop my artistic vision."
ANNE TIWARI
“It gave me a greater sense of comfort with who I am and where I am right now, and a more focused idea of where I want to go and what I want to pursue at this time.”
JANE SHERWOOD
“My work moved forward leaps and bounds and I began to understand the process of my creativity on a much deeper level.”
LINDA STOUT
"I now feel entirely like I am a real artist and I don’t need to apologise or explain my art. It is art!"
KERSTIN SCHNIEDER
“I’ve learned that it is absolutely ok to make my art practice priority in my life, even if I didn’t have a classical art education. So I think my imposter syndrome is finally shrinking”
This isn't for you if
Louise Fletcher first took CREATIVE SHIFT in 2021 then came back for a second round in 2025. In her own words:
"I'm the living proof that twice I've benefited from this, and I credit a lot of my creative development to the things I learned in CREATIVE SHIFT."
She's honest that the course isn't for everyone - but if you're watching this and it resonates, she says, you're exactly who it's for.
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SEE WHY SHE CAME BACK
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"you're such a lovely, gentle kind of guide on that process... just gently nudging people along. You're not pushy, and you're not dictatorial."
Louise Fletcher 2026
Meet the Team
Meet the team behind CREATIVE SHIFT - two working artists with a combined 50+ years in the studio, a shared belief that your creative direction isn't taught from the outside - it's drawn out from within.
The 10 modules
12 weeks / 10 modules / 2 rest weeks
1. It’s All About You
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Beginning with self-reflection and awareness, we explore who you are as an artist, where you are now, and the many experiences, influences, and beliefs that may be shaping your creative practice beneath the surface.
4. Materials & Processes
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Looking more closely at the materials, tools, processes, and working approaches that support, challenge, influence, or shape your experience in the studio.
7. Following Your Nudges
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Exploring the quieter instincts, curiosities, and creative pulls that often try to guide us forward - and learning how to recognise, trust, and respond to them more consciously within our practice.
10. Building Your Personal Framework
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Bringing together the reflections, discoveries, observations, and learning from throughout the course to begin developing a more conscious, supportive, and personal framework for moving forward within your creative practice.
2. Inspirations & Influences
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Exploring the artists, materials, places, memories, aesthetics, experiences, and visual references that genuinely resonate with you - helping you recognise what continues to pull your attention and curiosity over time.
5. The Importance of Play
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Exploring the role of play, experimentation, curiosity, and creative freedom within the studio - and how moments of openness and unpredictability can often lead to new discoveries and deeper creative connection.
8. Using Pause as a Tool in Your Practice
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Exploring the value of slowing down, stepping back, observing, and creating space within a creative practice - recognising how pause itself can become a powerful part of the process.
3. Visual Elements
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Developing a greater awareness of the visual elements appearing throughout your work, and how colour, shape, texture, contrast, composition, rhythm, and repetition contribute to your evolving visual language.
6. Notice What You’re Noticing
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Learning to pay closer attention to the patterns, themes, instincts, repetitions, curiosities, and visual threads that continue to appear throughout your work and creative life.
9. Staying Connected to Your Practice
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Looking at the many ways artists sustain connection to their work over time, even through changing seasons of life, shifting energy, uncertainty, or periods of creative fluctuation.
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Earlybird enrolment now open!
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CREATIVE SHIFT 2026
begins
Monday 7th September
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Returning CREATIVE SHIFT alumni receive a discounted rate for 2026.
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CREATIVE SHIFT is hosted on my community platform on Mighty Networks, you will need a Mighty Networks account.
If you don't already have one, it only takes a moment to sign up.
A final thought
CREATIVE SHIFT is not about becoming a different artist. It is about developing a deeper understanding of yourself, your creative process, and the many elements shaping the work you feel drawn to make.
Over 12 weeks, the course invites you to reflect, notice patterns, ask questions, experiment, reconnect, and engage more consciously with your work and practice whilst being supported by a thoughtful and encouraging community of fellow artists.
If you feel drawn towards this kind of exploration, I would love to welcome you into CREATIVE SHIFT 2026.
Sally-Anne x