Creative + Practice Experience
Making art is hard, unless you have a creative practice.
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Creative + Practice Experience
🎉 15th Anniversary 🎉 Holiday Edition
December 1, 2026 – January 23, 2027
The 15th Anniversary Holiday Edition of the Creative + Practice Experience runs eight weeks, from December 1, 2026 to January 23, 2027, intentionally timed to support you through the holidays, so your new year begins with your creative practice already in place, instead of another resolution.
We work by hand in an artist’s sketchbook: writing, drawing, painting, collage. No studio space, prior art experience or special art supplies are needed. Everyone is welcome — and anyone who feels the least bit intimidated by art is especially encouraged to join in the fun.
Working analog slows the mind and wakes up attention in a way screens don’t. Everything here moves at a human pace and is designed to be easier on tired, overextended nervous systems.
The work gives your inner life—thoughts, feelings, questions—somewhere to land on the page, instead of carrying it all internally.
If you’ve been telling yourself you’ll get back to your art when you have more time, more clarity, more energy, this is for you. Rather than pushing through or trying to override how you feel, this practice works with your energy as it is.
The Creative + Practice Experience guides you, step by step, into a creative practice you can actually keep, over eight weeks.
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been away from your art. Or if you haven’t really started. We’ve all been there, and that’s what having a creative practice is for.
All you need is a sketchbook, kindergarten art supplies, and a willingness to begin where you are.
A new lesson opens each Monday. Each Saturday the group meets with me live on Zoom, where I teach, answer questions, and coach anyone who wants it. The live sessions are recorded so you can watch at your own pace. And you’ll have lifetime access to the entire course. Because a creative practice is meant to be savored over time.
“I quickly regained my momentum and recovered lost dreams.”
“When I first began taking Lisa Sonora’s workshops, I was discouraged, stuck, and unmotivated.
I had lost sight of my dreams and desires and felt a lack of direction and clarity about who I was and where I was going. I felt a disconnect and discontent with my life.
In Creative + Practice, I quickly regained my momentum and recovered lost dreams.”
— Lauralyn Hundley
Why Making Art Is Hard
What do you notice about this list of reasons that making art is hard for so many of us?
At first glance, they may seem like personal failings. But look closer.
Can you see comparison, judgment and self-criticism? Fear of failing, doing it wrong, not being perfect. Worries about not having enough or being enough.
What all of these fearful thoughts and feelings have in common is uncertainty.
The unknown naturally makes us feel vulnerable.
Anything unfamiliar can trigger the survival alarms of fight, flight and freeze, because our brains evolved to seek ease, familiarity and comfort.
That’s why even a seemingly innocuous blank page can feel scary.
Making art is hard when we feel vulnerable.
We avoid creating, because deep down, we’re scared. It’s not a personal flaw, but more to do with how our brains evolved to be alert for danger and avoid the unfamiliar.
Our fear of messing up a blank page or doing it wrong may sound dramatic, but it’s real. Sure, it’s only paper and shouldn’t feel so high stakes. But our fear responses don’t respond to logic.
When discipline or motivation breaks down, it’s rarely because of laziness or lack of commitment. More often, it’s because we don’t know how to face the blank page when confusion, fatigue, or self-doubt appear.
We need to have the experience of feeling safe while creating. And the best way I know how to do that is to have a nervous-system-friendly creative practice.
Feeling Safe While Making Art
“When I began the Creative + Practice workshop, I was stressed and tired — beating myself up for not accomplishing enough with my art, for spinning my wheels, for not being good enough...
I felt guilty for taking the time and spending the money. But Lisa started us gently, and within about fifteen minutes, I was totally over that.
What I learned here is now a regular part of my artistic practice. It helps me clarify goals, identify resistance, and commit to where I want to go.”
— Susan Rochester, Visual Artist & Educator
What Is A Creative Practice
A creative practice is a structured, repeatable, and private way of engaging with your art.
It’s how you show up and keep your creative channel open, regardless of how you feel or what’s happening around you.
Actors memorize their lines, dancers keep limber, musicians warm up with scales, and they all rehearse. But what about visual artists? We need a way to practice too.
Creative practice is the method behind the magic of art-making. It’s how visual artists train, rehearse and stay limber.
This isn’t about pushing harder, fixing yourself, or forcing consistency. It’s about having a structure that allows you to keep going, even when creativity feels uncertain or uneven.
Making Art Without Fear
Keeping a visual journal as a creative practice gives the nervous system a safe container to make art without getting overwhelmed by art supplies, techniques, or not knowing how to start. The inner critic isn’t allowed to judge, evaluate, or criticize what happens there.
Because making art is hard when we feel vulnerable, I developed the Creative + Practice Experience as a way to make art that:
- feels safe to experiment and learn without judgment
- welcomes our emotional life into the mix
- and supports the nervous system to relax, so that creating is fun, instead of fearful
We work within a structure that creates a sense of safety with several principles and studio agreements:
- our work over the eight weeks stays private,
- is done by hand with simple art supplies,
- puts process before product,
- focuses on expressive play rather than technical skill,
- and removes critique by not interpreting, comparing or judging the work.
Many people arrive here because they feel drawn to making art—and don’t know where to begin.
I’m Lisa Sonora.
I always wanted to be an artist, but didn’t know how.
This is how I gradually figured it out.
For me, sustaining a life as an artist has had less to do with talent or strategy, and more to do with one simple creative practice I return to again and again.
That practice lives in a sketchbook—a personal, by-hand workspace where writing, drawing, painting, and collage can all happen in one place.
I began sharing this way of working when I was an art therapist, shaping it into something gentle, contained, and easy for clients to return to on their own.
It’s where ideas begin, my focus is trained, and where I go to work things out—personally and professionally.
The Creative + Practice Experience is a shortcut for what took me decades to figure out, and an invitation into a radically different way of making your art—one that meets you where you are and grows with you.
Try It For Two Sessions
The Creative + Practice Experience includes lifetime access to the full workshop lessons and our live recordings.
Since first offering this course in 2011, I’ve seen the Creative + Practice Experience support and reshape the creative lives of thousands of students. Many return year after year for support and friendship as their creative life changes and deepens.
I want you to be able to experience the course without having to second-guess whether it will be worth the investment — so I invite you to try the Creative + Practice Experience for two full sessions.
If you decide it isn’t right for you, for any reason, I’ll refund your registration. No questions asked. Refund requests are accepted through December 13, 2026.
Once you register, you’ll receive access to the course beginning December 1, 2026, along with welcome materials inside our private, members-only classroom.
Early registration through November 17
$250
$350 from November 18. Registration closes December 4.
🎉 15th Anniversary 🎉 Holiday Edition
Schedule & Course Details
We meet for 8 Weeks, with a total of 8 Lessons.
Lesson 1 is available on Tuesday, December 1, 2026. New lessons open each Monday after that.
Our first Live Session is Saturday, December 5, 2026.
Live sessions take place Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time from December 5, 2026 through January 23, 2027.
Sessions are recorded, so you can attend live or watch later at your own pace.
Use your favorite device
All lessons are available 24/7 and can be accessed on your desktop or laptop computer. You can also use the course app on your tablet or smartphone, making it easy to engage with the lessons wherever you’re doing your creative practice.
You won’t be doing this alone (unless you want to)
There’s space inside the course to post your work, see what others are doing, and stay connected throughout the experience. This support helps you follow through and get more out of the workshop — while still allowing you to work privately if that’s your preference.
Share and connect
Inside our private course site, you can participate in group conversations, send private messages, post your work, and ask questions. (No Facebook groups.)
Live Workshop Sessions
We meet live on Zoom, where you’ll have the opportunity to receive individualized support and coaching. I offer guidance tailored to your experience, and participants find that watching others get coached is just as valuable as being coached themselves.
Live sessions take place Saturdays at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time from December 5, 2026 through January 23, 2027.
Sessions are recorded, so you can attend live or watch later at your own pace.
Each Creative + Practice Experience cohort includes returning students — some of whom have been coming back for the past fourteen years — which makes each round uniquely rich and layered.
A Look Inside The Weekly Lessons
What follows is the arc of the eight-week Creative + Practice Experience — each week building on the last, so your creative practice develops in a way that’s both sustainable and personal.
Here’s what we’ll be doing together, week by week:
Week 1:
Prepping, Planning & Packing for Your 8 Week Creative + Practice Journey
If the idea of a regular practice seems daunting, I totally understand. What I can promise you is that there is an easy, do-able, step-by-step method that really works to make it all practical, and possible.
- Mapping Your Creative + Practice 8 Week Plan
- So You Want to Create. Got ONE Minute?
- 5 Steps to Get the Most Out of This (or ANY) Workshop, Seminar, Training or Coaching Program
- Packing Your Creative + Practice Toolkit
- Use the Science of Habit Change to Begin, So You Keep Going
Week 2:
Setting Out — The No Discipline Required Way to Take Inspired Creative Action
Now that you’ve got your roadmap and plan for creative practice, you’ll start creating right away. No. Discipline. Required.
When you struggle with discipline or keeping to a new routine, it's because you haven't had an approach that helps you develop the real courage it takes to face the blank page, along with a system of creating sustainable creative habits.
- If You’ve Struggled to Create Consistently: This is What’s Been Missing
- Boundaries: What Your Creativity Needs to Thrive
- How (Exactly) to Create with Courage
- Beyond Journaling & Morning Pages: How to Use Intentional Expressive Writing to Fuel Your Creative Practice
Week 3:
Designing Your Guidebook — Visual Techniques & Tools for Transformation & Problem Solving
Now that you’ve faced the blank page with confidence, you’ll learn how to tap into your imagination to help you do your best work.
- Why creating something new is so scary, and how to put it to work for you
- The difference between process and product, and exactly where and how to use both in your work
- How to start using image in your creative practice — absolutely no drawing, painting, skills or experience required
- Accessing your inner wisdom through imagination
Week 4:
What Resistance? How to Make the Emotional Nature of Creativity Work For You, Not Against You
If you’ve ever made a New Year’s resolution, you know how quickly those can fizzle out. You’re not alone.
Millions of people don’t even make it through the first two weeks before giving up. That’s why this week has your back.
I don’t want you to quit before you’ve barely even started your journey.
With awareness, planning and the tools of Creative + Practice, you can be one of the rare few who keeps going—right past the pitfalls and detours that make it so hard to create.
- The #1 Thing That Stops People From Creating — That You Can Remedy Starting NOW
- What’s Really Behind Those Moods Affecting Your Focus & Productivity
- When You Feel Lazy and Unmotivated — How to Create Anyway
Week 5:
How to Create Anywhere, Regardless: Creative Practice for the Busy & Overwhelmed WITHOUT a Studio
You're creating, aware of the many things that used to get in the way of doing your creative work. But what about space? We can fantasize over the ideal studio space on Pinterest, but what if I showed you how you could do your best work at your kitchen table, and create a portable studio absolutely anywhere?
- How to Deal with Lack of Time & Space
- Creating the Perfect At-Home Studio Space — Without a dedicated Studio
- You Can Take It With You: Your Portable Studio
- Creating Privacy & Protecting Your Work
- Making Your Creative Practice Adaptable, Flexible, Experimental, Supportive
Week 6:
Demystifying Art Making: A Color-Drenched Initiation For the Intimidated
What makes the Creative + Practice workshop so unique, is that you’re actually creating while you learn the process, tools and techniques. This isn’t an intellectual exercise. That would be so boring for creatives, and not work! However, working with art supplies, including collage and mixed media materials, can be intimidating for so many. That’s why you’ll love this humble and demystified approach to using art supplies and techniques. No art experience required.
- Demystifying Art Supplies
- The Role of Art Supplies in Creative Practice
- The Easiest Collage Ever
- Inside Lisa's Creative Practice Sketchbook: Writing & Painted Pages
- Quick & Easy Painting Techniques (No Art Experience Required!)
- What to Do When You Make Stuff You Don’t Like
Week 7:
The Cyclic Nature of Creativity: How (and When) to Start, Finish & Follow-Through
There are natural cycles to creativity, just like life. As we near the end of this workshop, you’ll learn how completion is so vital to your creative process, and completion isn’t the end. So often, life interferes with our best intentions and plans. Here’s what to do to avoid the self-criticism and guilt, and not lose your creative momentum. Even when life happens. It will!
- Use the Natural Creative Cycles to Create More Without the Effort and angst
- How “Doing Nothing” Is Actually Productive: Rest Is A Creative Weapon
- Harness Your Creative FLOW and Ride Out Creative Ups & Downs
- How to Manage Long Creative Projects
- The Rhythm of a Regular Creative Practice
Week 8:
From Practice to The Practical: Benefiting & Profiting from Your Creative Practice
In just eight weeks, you've already come such a long way since starting your Creative Practice. Now it’s time to translate what you’ve been doing into tangible and practical results.
You’ll use an unconventional technique to help you mine the gold. Doing this will make creative practice your own.
You’ll also discover how to benefit from the many ways your creative practice can support you—emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and also financially.
- What’s This All For? Extracting the Gifts of Your Creative Practice
- Own Your Creative + Practice — And Use It For a Lifetime
- Leave Perfectionism Behind — For Good
- Profiting from Your Creative Practice
- The #1 problem all Creative Entrepreneurs Have - And How to Fix It NOW
- Claiming Yourself as an Artist — Starting With the Body of Work You’ve Already Made Here
“And I thought I was stuck? Yeah, NO.”
“What I learned in the very first week was revelatory. Within five minutes I had filled two pages full of sketches and notes for new art projects.
And I thought I was stuck? Yeah, NO. If the first week brought this much abundance, I can’t imagine where I’ll be at the end of eight weeks.”
- Joanna Powell Colbert
How This All Began
If you’re wondering why in the world I’m offering this over the holiday season, you may enjoy this little backstory.
The 15th Anniversary Holiday Edition runs eight weeks, from December 1, 2026 to January 23, 2027, intentionally timed to support you through the holidays, so your new year begins with your creative practice already in place, instead of another resolution.
It all started as a creative challenge. Just before Thanksgiving, back in 2011, I was in Oakland, California visiting with a few friends who, like me, all happen to have their own business doing their creative thing.
Each were lamenting that while they loved the holiday season, it was the absolute worst time to get anything creative done. Not only that, it would take weeks, if not months, post New Year’s, for them to get back into a steady creative rhythm again.
Then I told them the truth of my own experience. Which was different than theirs: I’m actually at my MOST productive creatively this time of year.
What if I could show you guys HOW to keep your creative momentum? Even when your social calendar is overflowing, work is overwhelming, and your mother-in-law is driving you crazy?
They all agreed it was a good idea, but bad timing.
But that’s the thing about creative projects. It’s never a good time to pursue them. So I posed it as a creative challenge to my mailing list — to help them launch their creative practice at the worst time of year, just to prove they could do it.
Over 200 people joined me and I’ve offered it over the holidays ever since. If a creative practice can take hold during the busiest season of the year, it can take hold any time.
December is typically full and busy for most of us with festivities, travel, and end-of-year projects. You might have guests sleeping in the room that’s normally your creative space. Even if you’re not traveling, December has a way of filling up. That’s why Week 5 covers making art without a studio: at the kitchen table, while traveling, or from a portable art studio in a box.
This is the fifteenth year of Creative + Practice. Each Creative + Practice Experience cohort includes returning students — some of whom have been coming back for over fifteen years — which makes each round uniquely rich and layered.
OK. That’s all I’ve got.
Now it’s your turn to go ahead and register so you can see for yourself just how life-changing having a creative practice can be.
Oh, and it’s really fun to do this with a friend so you have an accountability partner. Dare them to sign up with you and make it a party.
