Line & Loop
Creative Recovery Courses
From Scribbles to Self
The Seven Day Creative Recovery Challenge
January 5th - 11th 2026
Many of us carry barriers or blocks around making art. The spontaneity and absorption we knew as children is crowded out by procrastination, people-pleasing and perfectionism.
In this free, seven-day challenge, we'll see how the stages of childhood art development - from early scribbles onwards - hold the key to our creativity. When we revisit them as adults, they reopen curiosity, rebuild courage, and restore that spontaneous impulse to create.
What you’ll learn
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Why artistic spontaneity narrows as we grow up and how to reopen it.
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Which childhood drawing stages may have been interrupted, and how they echo in adult creative blocks.
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How small, simple practices rooted in early mark-making can restore momentum.
What to expect
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Daily live session (1 hour): join live each day; replay available if you can’t attend.
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Daily journalling prompts and sketchbook tasks.
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Pop-up Facebook community: a space for support and reflection.
You’ll leave with
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Fresh insight into your barriers and block and daily habits to keep them at bay
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A sense of the kind of artist you are and have always been
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An invitation to continue with the Line & Loop's 7 in Seven creative recovery programme at a special discounted rate
'Every child is an artist.
The problem is how to remain
an artist when we grow up'
Pablo Picasso
COMING SOON......
Seven Stages of Artistic Growth in Seven Weeks
Seven in Seven
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Return to childlike curiosity and courage
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Reconnect with your resilience
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Relieve perfectionism and procrastination
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Reveal your true artistic voice
If From Scribbles to Self is a spark, '7 in SEVEN' is the fire that follows.
Over seven weeks, we move more slowly and deeply through the seven stages of childhood art development.
What to expect
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Two weekly live group sessions with guided art processes and reflective discussion (replays available).
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Sketchbook and studio practices designed to rebuild trust in your own creative rhythm.
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A supportive online community for sharing reflections and artwork between sessions.
You’ll leave with
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A clear understanding of your own creative orientation.
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A sketchbook and studio pieces charting your recovery process.
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Personal tools for sustaining creativity beyond the course.
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The foundation for deeper, lifelong artistic practice through the Line & Loop framework.
ABOUT ME
Hello, I’m Ali. At sixteen I was steered away from art and into ‘academic’ subjects and spent the next two decades blocked and bereft, trying to find my way back to the spontaneous creative impulse I had enjoyed as a child. Eventually, In my late thirties, I left my job and went back to college to train as an artist. But even though my skills improved, I was still paralysed by procrastination and perfectionism.
It was only when I started a business teaching art to children that I began to heal. I realised they had as much to teach me as I had to teach them - about spontaneity, about intuition and, most of all, about resilience.
Later, when I began working with adults, I saw how much more inhibited and self-critical many were compared with the children. And I found that when I scratched the surface, there was almost always a creative wound there - an early moment of judgement, shame or discouragement - much like my own story.
Line & Loop grew from these conversations. My aim is to help people find their way back to their childlike curiosity, courage and creativity.