Bali Art & Yoga Retreat 2022
8 day Art & Yoga Retreat
For Creative and Adventurous Women
Monday August 29th to Tuesday September 6th 2022
Friday May 26th to Sunday June 4th 2023. Sorry this 2023 tour has been cancelled.
Join us for 8 magical days in peaceful Bali on this heavenly women’s art and yoga retreat. Paint and play in the waterfalls of the cooler mountains, and swim and sketch by the coral seas of the north west coast.
Over the last 17 retreats, we have discovered places in Bali where magic and beauty seep into your being and where Balinese culture and kindness both soften and enrich your heart. Some places are so potent, they can peel us back to our pure creativity and allow a real sense of freedom to emerge.
Combine art with yoga and guided meditations and your heart can open like a flower and your body surrender into it’s centre and flow.
The retreat has a maximum of 10 participants so that we are like a group of friends holidaying together with everyone having their own room. In Munduk you will be able to see the sunset over the mountains and the northern coast of Bali from your own balcony. In Pemuteran you will be having your breakfast with the waves lapping by your side. You don’t need experience in art or yoga to join us.
Art
Many levels of art experience are welcome on the retreat. My goal and emphasis is to help you explore your creative expression, whether through representational, symbolic or abstract art. I like to offer a blend of art skills; my passions being colour, light mixing and inner transformational work.
The retreat offers a weekend workshop over the first two days in Munduk. The workshop leads to a piece of art that is derived from a series of guided meditations that enable you to connect more fully with your wisdom and heart. Bali is a powerful catalyst for this.
The remainder of the retreat is sketching and painting the magical places that we visit, with art classes on location, and an emphasis on your work being an expression of you.You may want to continue working on your weekend workshop piece in your free time too.
Yoga
Ashlea Wilken is our yoga teacher and runs Yoga West in Perth, WA. She has been teaching yoga for 35 years, helping people with the many joys and pains that life presents. She is always very attentive to individual needs and is a wonderful teacher to our group of artists who often have little, or rusty yoga experience. Ashlea is a certified Iyengar yoga teacher and has been visiting Pune, India on a regular basis since 1995 to study with the Iyengar family, as well as attending yearly workshops with senior teachers here in Australia.
Most days start with an hour of yoga before breakfast, though sometimes if we have an early start we may practice at the end of the day instead.As Yoga has multiple mind, body and spirit benefits, it also affects your art practice. It opens you up and removes some of the blockages that may clog up your creative flow and is a wonderful way for us to start our day in Bali.
Book a Time to Talk to Dawn Meader
Munduk
Day 1 -6
Day 1 Monday: We open our retreat on Friday evening at 6pm at our eco hotel in the small mountain village of Munduk. The cottages are set in the cool mountain air where air-conditioning is unnecessary. The compound is designed in the traditional Balinese manner modelled on the sacred human form with shrines at the head, guest accommodation at the heart and other facilities at the foot.
The panoramas over northern Bali are simply breathtaking. Every evening presents an opportunity to paint spectacular sunsets over the northern coastline and rice fields. Bali’s highest waterfalls are within walking distance of our accommodation.
We will arrange for you to be picked up from your hotel or Denpasar airport. It is about 3 hours from the airport to the village of Munduk.
Day 2 Tuesday: We start the day with early morning yoga, followed by a sensational buffet breakfast. We then set off for a hike through vanilla, cocoa, coffee and clove plantations to the beautiful Munduk waterfalls. It is a great way to start the retreat as the water blasts away any cobwebs and is wonderfully energizing.
After lunch back at our eco hotel, we start a painting, pastel and gold leaf workshop. The theme is “I am Nature”. Create an artwork through a series of guided visualisations that can take you into a state of deep peace and connection to nature and love. It gives you insight into your own cycles and nature.
Day 3 Wednesday: We start the day with early morning yoga before breakfast. Then we continue with our pastel and painting workshop, stopping for lunch for a sumptuous Balinese Banquet.
Day 4 Thursday: After breakfast, we have yoga at sunset today, the locals take us on a motorbike ride with beautiful views over the coast, winding through the scent of clove plantations to one of the lakes. We hike through the emerald rainforest to a temple on the lakeshore where we sketch. We are taken back across the lake in a canoe before hopping back onto our bikes to get back to our hotel. After lunch spend the afternoon relaxing, painting around the panoramic grounds, or continuing in the studio with me.
Yoga at 6pm
Day 5 -9
Day 5 Friday: Yoga and breakfast. After this we will drive to the village of Pemuteran in the North West of Bali. It is the closest village to Menjangan Island, a world heritage snorkelling site. We will be staying at a beach resort for four nights in our own courtyard of Deluxe Studios and private pool. There is also a wonderful yoga rotunda and another great pool next to the black sandy beach. The afternoon is yours to relax and sketch at your own leisure.
Day 6 Saturday: Just before dawn we take a boat journey to paint the sunrise and the mountainous coast of northern Bali. We may even see some dolphins. We return to our resort for breakfast, followed by a lesson on how to see and paint colour at the beach.
Lunch is served on the beach. The afternoon is yours to sketch, be massaged or chill by the pool or there will be a lesson drawing or painting one of the local women who will be modelling in her temple dress.
There is a man made reef just off our beachfront if you would like a snorkel later on and a natural reef a little further down the beach.
We finish our day with yoga at sunset at the rotunda.
Day 7 Sunday: After yoga and breakfast, we travel to Menjangan Island, a Conservation Area located about 10km North West off Bali forming part of the West Bali National Park.
Menjangan is surrounded by a coral reef, characterized by shallow coral and deep drop offs up to 60 meters, and complex rock formations. We will be snorkelling around two of these reefs. There are festoons of sponge and soft corals, often inhabited by large groupers, moray eels and by young snappers and batfish. After snorkelling we have a Balinese picnic lunch and paint with vistas of the sandy turquoise bay, complete with views over to the volcanoes of Java.
Day 8 Monday: After yoga and breakfast, the morning is free to sketch, relax on the black sandy beach or be massaged by the pool. Later, at about 3.30pm we visit a local temple for ceremony and stay on to sketch the temple. If you feel like it…..there is a wonderful hike up to Batu Kursi, a temple that overlooks all of Pemuteran Bay. It is a perfect place to watch the sunset and sketch the bay.
Day 9 Tuesday: Yoga and breakfast.We spend our last morning making a mini temple based on a series of guided visualisations that guide you for your next steps back at home.
Check out of your room by 12pm.
12.30 pm Tuesday lunch and close of retreat.
14.00 We leave Pemuteran to drive back towards Denpasar, via Munduk, where we will stop to have a break and some tea. It is 2 hours from Pemuteran to Munduk and another 3hrs to the airport, or another 2hrs to Ubud.
If you wish to depart on Tuesday, please book a late night flight departing after 9pm. You may wish to stay another night in Munduk, or I can suggest places for you to stay in Ubud. If you need to get an earlier flight on Tuday allow for 4 to 5 hours travelling time to the airport. The airport drop off is covered if you travel with the group. We will be travelling via Munduk and also to Ubud.
Here are two beautiful places to stay in and around Ubud.
Tjampuhan Hotel in Ubud. This is where the legendary German artist Walter Spies lived from 1927.
Santra Putra Guest House in Penestanan , a village walking distance to Ubud, not too far from Tjamphuan. There are plenty of little organic and traditional restaurants around here. This is the home of artist Wayan Karja and we ran the retreats here for many years. It is more like a homestay with you own little villa. They are a really beautiful family. It is worth booking early.
Costs for August 2022 Retreat
$2,620 AUD with your own room. $500 deposit.
Inclusions and Exclusions
Included:
8 nights accommodation with breakfast and banquet lunch on Day 2
All your art and yoga classes and some art supplies.
All transport and tours, including airport pick up.
Full body massage.
Excluded:
Lunches and dinners (budget AUD $20 to $30 a day, not including alcohol)
Flights to and from Bali.
Both of our retreat venues have beautiful restaurants and spas in their gardens.
Costs for May 26th 2023 Retreat
$2,820 AUD with your own room. $500 deposit. This retreat is a day longer.
What to bring to the art and yoga Bali art retreat
Your art materials
Here is a little video to help clarify things.
Art supplies list for the Bali art and yoga retreat
Some other things to bring along to your retreat
Must know… to enter Bali..Covid-19, visas and medical insurance
I can’t wait to be there with you, standing under waterfalls and painting in turquoise bays.
As my friend Balinese artist friend Karja says “Water is the best artist.”
Please don’t hesitate to write with any questions.
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Reflections
Just returned home from the Yoga & Art Retreat in Bali, feeling amazing in a mental, physical and spiritual sense. Being a novice artist, I was a little nervous at first, but with Dawn’s guidance, patience and instruction, I created a piece of artwork which I absolutely love, and learned colour mixing, how to work with watercolours and pastels. Daily yoga with Ashlea was fantastic, challenging and the perfect start to a creative day. It was such a honour to be part of this well organised and enjoyable tour, and I would highly recommend it others. In addition, we hiked, paddled, snorkelled, attended Temple and ate beautiful food. I now have so many beautiful experiences to remember and cherish…. and an amazing piece of art to remind me! Thank you Dawn and Ashlea. ” Janette Wood”
Thank you so much for this retreat Dawn. For me personally the theme ‘ I am enough’ was the best experience for my heart at this time. Also staying in Munduk and Pemuteran in nature without other tourists and shops makes this retreat even more perfect. You are able to connect with yourself and nature as one. You are an amazing facilitator Dawn. You bring out the best in all of us creatively and guide us to open our hearts and minds to find the best of ourselves. Your warm and generous heart is a gift to us all. “Chris Skeggs”
There are no words for such a deeply moving and transformative experience. I can feel only images in my heart, and my dear Heart is illuminated with so many beautiful images, experiences and moments shared . I am flooded with an overwhelming sense of joy, freedom, power, grace and immense gratitude for all that has occurred. I am reconnected to Source, my Heart sings of home, and I feel the return of a deep sense of peace and trust that has been absent for so long. I know, that from here on, life will be different. I am so grateful for the experience, and for the opportunity to have spent time with such beautiful being and gifted mentor and one who is truly versed in the art of flying. Thank you Dawn for your love, support and gentle encouragement. ” Sophie, West Australia”
