Living Colour
Perception, Experience & Practice
24 - 25 October 2026
Overview
This course explores colour as a living, relational phenomenon experienced through the human being. Drawing on the work of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Rudolf Steiner, participants engage with colour through embodied experience. Tutor and artist Deanne Eccles will teach using her own Body Sense Perception and Response methodology, which guides participants encountering colour through observation, sensory experience, movement, gesture and painting. The course develops a more conscious relationship to colour and its influence on perception, mood, and movement.
Focus Areas
- Colour as a dynamic and relational phenomenon
- Experiencing colour through the senses
- The qualitative nature of colour (warmth, movement, atmosphere)
- Colour as gesture and expression
- Practical engagement with colour in artistic and everyday contexts
Body Sense Perception
Body Sense Perception is a technique of experiencing art viscerally, as developed by Deanne.The process is an amalgamation of her multidisciplinary studies across performance and visual arts, asking the audience not to dissect what is in front of them but to instead translate how it affects them.
Body
Through our senses our body perceives our internal and external world. It is a vehicle for us to experience our unique selves. It also holds the history of our genetics, and the history of our soul. When we take our awareness down into our body and through the channels of the senses, we gain a deeper insight into who we are, where we should be, and how we are being affected. The body is a wonderful tool for receiving information which we may not initially interpret through the mind.
When standing in front of an abstract painting, we can be having a somatic experience without being conscious of it. Using the BSP techniques, we can become consciously aware of the abstract paintings effect and use this as an osmotic mode for creating other works of art. To enliven and bring awareness into our bodies we can continually exist as creative beings.
Sense
As artists we are constantly seeking inspiration. But where do we seek this inspiration from? Body Sense Perception is based upon Rudolf Seiner’s 12 Senses.
Through our senses we learn about inner world, about the outer world, and how we relate and connect as inner beings in the outer world. We tend to mostly gain information through the mind and use our other senses to predominantly guage what is pleasurable. When we engage all of our senses and observe our response, inspiration endlessly flows.
Perception
Our perception or awareness is the mode of observation, whether it be subjective, or objective. It is the willful action taken to gain information about how our bodies and how our sense of self is being affected by the external environment, how the external environment is being affected by us and gaining deeper insight into who and what is in the external world. Our perception of how we are feeling, and how we are physically reacting or responding, can be singular or intertwined. Through the 12 Senses we use our perception to gain information about what we observe and experience.
Outcome
Participants develop:
- a refined perception of colour
- an embodied understanding of its effects
- a practical and living relationship to colour
Dates: 24-25 October 2026
Time: 9.00am - 3.30pm
Format: On Campus at Melbourne Rudolf Steiner Seminar, 37a Wellington Park Drive, Warranwood
Tutor: Deanne Eccles
Fee: $530 (Early Bird pricing until 11 October is $465)
Withdrawing and refunds Please notify us by email if you will be withdrawing from a course.
If you withdraw prior to course beginning we will refund any fees paid less a $100 enrolment processing fee.
If you withdraw after the first session of the course, we will refund any fees paid, less $155 administration fee.
If you withdraw after the second week, no refunds can be given.
- Wear comfortable clothes and shoes for movement.
- Paints and brushes will be provided. You may wish to bring an apron to wear while painting.
- Please bring your own lunch for each day. Morning and afternoon teas will be provided.