Colourful Capers in Shanklin ...

Writer and journalist, Jo Macaulay visits Skyros offshoot at The Grange by The Sea for a creative course with Theresa Sundt. Read about her experience here ... Theresa will be in Skyros, Greece this summer. 

I felt the need to get a bit of colour into my life so I made my way over to the Grange in Shanklin to join a course on experimenting with the colour of my personality called ‘Playing with Colour’ ... 

Not that I had any idea what the ‘colour of my personality’ was until I got there. Or indeed what it was likely to be. Was it the colours that I like? Was it the colours that suit me? Was it like those make-overs where they tell you whether you’re winter, spring, summer or autumn? It was all a bit up in the air until I got there.

So I was intrigued to find that it was none of the above when I met Theresa Sundt, the course leader. In fact our personality colour is determined by our date of birth it appears. The colours range through the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet and then magenta and gold to make nine different hues that our personalities ‘resonate’ to.


And mine, not surprisingly for a lady of my standing, is gold I was told, which cheered me up no end. It seemed to be the best one to be according to what was revealed. “Gold personalities are humanitarian creatures who wish to save the world; their ambition is to serve others,” according to Teresa’s book ‘The Nine Colour Personalities’. Hmmm, well on a good day I suppose…

The next day we mapped out our colours on a circle and worked out those of our nearest and dearest. Then armed with this new knowledge about our personality colours we were encouraged to make works of art using ‘our’ colours and those of our families, and Teresa produced hanks of felting wool in every colour of the rainbow for us to work into felt pictures.

But gold is a bit of a difficult one, what with it being shiny and, well gold, so I had to be content with an orangey yellow. We also worked with the other colours that made up our personalities and mine were magenta and orange apparently. Not colours that I am readily drawn to, but I was happy to give it a go. And my family had indigo, yellow, green and red too so the result was a bit of an explosion in a paint factory.

Laying out our felt layers, then working them together with soapy water and then placing the result on a canvas was great fun. Then we left them to dry and to add glitter to the next day if we wished. Teresa gave individual colour readings and the atmosphere was fun and relaxing.


The following day it was ‘draw your mandala’ day and the picture I produced resembled a golden and magenta flower. I think you’re supposed to use these for meditation purposes.
After the course finished we were treated to slices of home-made quiche and wedges of yummy rocky road with our tea or coffee. Sat on the decking outside the hotel in the sunshine, looking down over the pretty garden, was the perfect end to the weekend of colourful activities.
 
And now I’m off to save the world ...

The Grange offer weekend creative and holistic courses throughout the year. Join them in May for ‘The Art of Touch' 11th-13th, ‘Walk, Tall, Feel Fabulous.’ 18th to 20th, and ‘Yoga with Awareness’ 25th to 27th. More courses are available in June, September, October, November and December.

Alternatively you can join Theresa Sundt in Skyros this Summer for her course 'The Art of Colour,' which will run from 11th August - 21st August.

For more details contact the Skyros team on +44 (0) 1983 865566 e: office@skyros.com or visit the website: www.skyros.com