Enlightened

This is the first of five weeks of the online class I wanted to share with you.  Please try these ideas in your journal pages if you are keeping up with your journal, or use them in creating a piece of art.  This week was a lot of fun.  I did some yoga, something I haven’t done in years.  It was basically 5 minutes of stretches, breathing, and shaking it out.  All it took was 5 minutes for me to feel relaxed.  I am going to write that down for future use!  Anyways, the purpose obviously is to relax enough to approach the painting without care.  It worked!

Now feeling relaxed I put on some music that I loved, dabbed my canvas with warm colored acrylic paints and with a foam brush, rag, and spray bottle started moving the paint around the canvas.  The intent was to fill the white of the canvas with color and to just let my intuition tell me what was next.  There was no need to worry about what it looked like, I won’t see much of it in the final layer.  What I found was that I needed to remind myself that I don’t need to make anything in particular, just do want feels right.  It was fun to see how the paint dripped and moved after I sprayed the canvas with water.

In the second canvas, the instructor suggested that I blindfold myself.  So blindfolded with a palette full of warm colors, I started swaying to the music and marking up the canvas with long, short, broken, etc. marks.  It was even more freeing than the exercise on the first canvas.  I couldn’t see where to go, I just opened my senses to the sound of the music, the feel of the canvas and paint, and the movement of my body.  As you can see, the result was quite different.

  

The instructor had some insights worth sharing.  She said, “what you choose to believe about yourself and about life often becomes what is true”.  If you change your thoughts you change your life.  She suggested that you could change your life story just by what you think.

She suggested asking these questions of yourself:  “how do you perceive yourself as an artist”, “what is your relationship to your intuition”, “what is the most challenging thing about making art for you”, and “how do you perceive yourself as part of a creative community”.  If your answers to any of these hold negative remarks transform your answers into positive ones.  She suggested that you write your affirmations down and say things like:  “I embrace the creative process with patience and trust”, instead of,  “I will embrace the creative process with patience and trust” .  Catch yourself and begin to reprogram how you talk to yourself and the world around you. 

On another day, cool colors were used in the second layer.  It is really important to wait until the first layer is dry before starting the second layer.  If the first layer is wet, the colors on your canvas will turn to mud.  After doing some more yoga, and going about painting without expectations, I used a foam brush, a bristle brush, my fingers, a rag, etchers, random objects for stamping, and a spray bottle.   She gave two pages of ideas on possible ways to use these tools, but in the end it is up to you what you want to do.

This has certainly been a new experience for me and I certainly would not have gone about making art this way in the past.  I can hardly wait to see what is on the agenda for next week.  I’ll keep you posted…

And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to dwell in.
Isaiah 58:12

To put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:22-24