Creative Play Lab

Creative Play Lab explores what creative play actually looks like, why it matters, and how it can help you develop new ideas, take more creative risks and follow the directions that emerge in your work.

How does play become part of a serious studio practice?

Creative Play Lab explores what creative play actually looks like, why it matters, and how it can help you develop new ideas, take more creative risks and follow the directions that emerge in your work.

Is this you?

You’re not a beginner. You’ve been making abstract or exploratory work for a while, and you’re drawn to the idea of play—but you may still wonder where it fits within a serious art practice.

Other artists talk about play as though its meaning were obvious, yet there is often little explanation of what it actually involves or how it contributes to developing stronger work.

You want to understand what creative play is, how to bring it into your day-to-day making without feeling that you’re simply messing about, and why it matters for the work you care about.

Creative Play Lab gives you a clear, structured way to explore play in depth through theory, reflection and practical exercises you can return to throughout your studio practice.

Creative Play Lab is not simply a collection of playful exercises.

Alongside practical making, the course includes theory, reflection and writing to help you understand what play is doing in your practice: how it supports experimentation, loosens fixed habits, opens new directions and helps you recognise what is worth pursuing.

You will make, think, notice and reflect. The aim is to develop a more considered relationship with play, so that it becomes part of how you work rather than something you occasionally try.

Creative Play Lab gives you a structured space to:

• Let go of needing to know where something is going

• Tune into intuition and instinct in a grounded way

• Explore possibilities before deciding what to pursue

• Notice what happens when you play—what opens, what repeats, what gets in the way

• Discover new threads and unexpected directions in your work

It’s designed for artists who already make work and want to deepen their relationship with play, so it becomes part of the engine of their practice rather than an add-on they reach for in between “serious” periods.

Here’s what to expect:

• Short theory threads drawn from psychology and creativity research, to give language and context to what you’re experiencing as you work

• Playful, process-focused exercises that get you straight into making, rather than staying in your head

• Journalling prompts to help you notice patterns in your play—where you open up, where you shut down, what genuinely energises you

• Suggestions for your ongoing practice, offering ways to carry the insights forward and keep the energy of play alive in your studio.

Across six modules, you’ll explore themes that support deep creative play:

• Inner and outer space: how to create the conditions for playful risk-taking

• Letting go of control: exploring spontaneous mark-making and chance

• Flow and attention: noticing what draws you in, and why it matters

• Imaginative space: engaging with materials in new and surprising ways

• Generating ideas: expanding ideas instead of narrowing them

• Your Art Practice: reflecting on what’s opened up and what comes next

You’ll receive:

🎨 Guided creative prompts that invite spontaneity and reflection
🧭 6 modules with 3–5 lessons each, all rooted in abstract, mixed media practice
📄 Downloadable PDFs for every lesson
📘 A full printable course booklet to keep
🔁 Lifetime access so you can revisit anytime
🧠 Reflective prompts to help you integrate what you discover into your wider practice

✨ An additional set of extended play prompts for further exploration

You can work through the course in sequence or return to individual modules when a particulalr aspect of your practice needs attaention. 

Self-paced download
The course is available instantly once you purchase. Start when you’re ready, pause when you need to, and come back to it as often as you like.

Flexible, focused modules
Each module gives you a different way to test ideas, notice patterns and identify direction worth keeping.

What you’ll take into your practice
By the end of the course, you’ll have a clearer understanding or how play works in your own practice, new ways to generate and develop ideas, and practical approaches you can return to. 

Creative Play Lab is for artists who:

• Already have some experience with abstract or exploratory work

• Want to refresh or deepen their practice through play

• Love to explore, but sometimes second-guess, tighten up or stall out

• Want enough structure to support exploration without over directing the process. 

• Value creative freedom, and are curious about the deeper patterns that shape how they play

It’s aimed at artists with an existing practice—whether that currently feels steady, patchy, or in transition. If you’re looking to grow your confidence by understanding and trusting your own way of playing, this is for you.

Looking for a smaller place to start?

Creative Sparks is a 12-day experimental practice challenge designed to help you test ideas, interrupt familiar habits and notice new possibilities in your work.

Each day, you’ll receive one practical prompt by email, with live sessions at the beginning and end of the challenge.

It’s a focused introduction to the kind of experimental thinking explored more deeply in Creative Play Lab.

Join Creative Sparks for £12

Creative Play Lab is made for artists who already have some kind of creative practice —whether it’s patchy, uncertain, or in transition.

So, it might not be the best fit if:

• You’re right at the very start of your art journey and haven’t yet begun experimenting on your own

• You’re looking for detailed, step-by-step instruction or formal techniques

• You want tightly structured lessons with set outcomes and clear rules

Investment

Join Creative Play Lab and begin exploring the role of play in your practice. 

Creative Play Lab Course: £75.

Lin is a superb interactive teacher. She encourages us to think outside the box. Lin is so good at reminding us that there are no rules… we paint for us & how we like & improve our art by following our instincts using guidelines. I recommend anyone to book her courses.

 Melanie Bettridge.

Lin’s teaching reenergised my art practice! I learned a lot about why I make the work I make, and some techniques to make it even more interesting.

May Beveridge

The best art decision I have made for this year. Thank you, Lin!

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