One of my intuitive painting rituals is to take a snapshot of my paint palette. Each session, my color choices differ depending on my mood or what simply strikes my fancy while perusing the rainbow of tempera bottles. The intuitive process begins even before paint ever touches paper. It starts by selecting colors and brushes. What size brush is your hand drawn to? What paint is crying out, “Pick me! Pick me!” Do you listen? Or do you ignore these creative urges? What a great reminder that it’s about the process, not the product!
How do you allow your intuition to guide you in selecting the tools, materials and resources for creating what you’re up to in your life?
I’m letting my intuition guide me by choosing this very important creative resource… starting in August, I’ll be participating in Chris Zydel’s Expressive Arts Teacher Training Program. If you’re a coach, therapist, artist or creative soul who wants to use expressive arts to facilitate powerful change, then definitely check out this training. It’s an intensive year-long experiential course where we’ll learn how to incorporate Expressive Arts approaches such as intuitive painting, movement, etc. into deep group process work. Chris will also be sharing the nuts and bolts of how to open a studio, run the business side of things and more!
While I’ve learned a ton about leading groups through CTI’s leadership program and I feel pretty good about my business know-how, I know there is always so much more knowledge to soak up and embody. What I love about this program is I’m going to get to blend together many of my loves – personal growth, creativity, expressive arts, leadership, coaching and group work. For a few years now, I’ve been searching for an Expressive Arts program but none of them seemed to fit what I was looking for. Many seemed too clinical or therapy-based or too academic. None of them cried out “Pick me! Pick me!” That is, until I met Chris. Her warm heart and wise spirit invited me to play! I’m really looking forward to continuing my personal and professional development in this way and I’m excited to see what will unfold from this experience.
What creative resource is calling your name today? What would happen if you followed that creative urge?
Today my mom and aunt came over to visit and my aunt brought these bright roses from her garden. I’m enjoying having all these fresh flowers in my home to remind me of the beauty of Mother Earth.
The past week I haven’t been feeling all that great. Have had a mild case of the stomach bug that’s been making the rounds. So, the last few days I’ve been taking it easy.
Yesterday, Kate came by to hang out for a bit. She came bearing get well soon daffodils (so sweet) and a super thoughtful gift to celebrate the half-way mark of our collaborative project, Kiss the Paper.
She got me the book “Learning to Love You More” which features a thought-provoking and inspiring collection of artwork from people all over the world who responded to a series of assignments started in 2002. What a cool creative project! If you want to get your work on the website, they’re taking sumbissions until May 1st, 2009.
My brother and his family were in town for Spring Break, so I spent the day with them at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. What a gorgeous day to be in the city! The sunshine and clear skies had me missing when we used to live within walking distance of the park.
My absolute favorite part of the museum was watching the huge, beautiful butterflies flutter about the rainforest dome.
I couldn’t believe how up close and personal we could get to these amazing creatures.
I saw one land on a guy’s shoulder. It was soooo cool!
The 3-D bug movie was cool, too. Unfortunately, I felt some motion sickness during the planetarium show, so I took the opportunity to take a quick nap.
One of the amazing things about this museum is that it is an aquarium, planetarium, natural history museum and rainforest all rolled in one. We got to experience the wonders of the earth, sea, sky and beyond.
View of the DeYoung Museum from the living rooftop
I couldn’t get over how clear it was. All I remember when I used to live in the Richmond was fog, fog and more fog.
The living rooftop is covered with 2.5 acres of native plants.
All in all, it was a great day spending time with nature and the family! Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend.
Since February, I’ve been attending Chris Zydel’s Intuitive Painting class at her cozy Oakland studio. What a gift to have stumbled upon Chris via twitter and to have this opportunity to explore my creative self in new ways. I’ve always loved painting. What’s great about playing with this approach, though, is that I’m accessing different parts of my intuition and allowing the images to just unfold – even if they don’t make sense or if I think they’re crazy and hideous!
It’s about the process not the product.
I’m finding that the intuitive painting is enhancing my creative process in general. In fact, the other day my book coach said she noticed that I’m getting more comfortable with sending her really bad and incomplete first drafts. Since I’m typically a perfectionist, this has been great progress! The crappy first drafts are valuable fodder which eventually evolves into something that works and feels good.
I felt compelled to share some of the pieces I’ve created recently, even though it feels vulnerable to do so. In class, we refrain from making any comments to others about their paintings. This helps to create a safe space where anything can show up on paper without fear of criticism (or even praise – or not getting praise). There’s definitely an edge for me in putting all this out there AND I know there is value in sharing my own process. So, here it goes…
The painting above started off looking and feeling like roadkill. I just happily slapped on layers and layers of red paint. Then some figures started to emerge…
And then over the course of two classes it morphed into this bizarre image. When I was stuck at one point, Chris asked me what are three possible things that could happen next, perhaps a new color or image. I said something in the top left corner. I really dislike purple, so that’s what I decided to go with – where there was the most resistance. At the end, I signed the painting and pinned it up next to me to dry. When I looked over, though, I saw some faint eyes staring back at me in the purple mess in the corner, so I had to go back and fill in glowing eyes in more detail to truly complete this wild painting.
Even though my judging mind thinks this image is quite ugly and disturbing, I found the painting process very satisfying. And that’s what it’s about! As Chris tweeted to me later on, “You’ve just discovered one of the secrets of the intuitive painting process. Making bad art can feel SO GOOD.”
This was painting I did last month. It was such a surprise to see what unfolded here as I let my brush just allow images to take shape. Beauty is a value of mine, so it is quite uncomfortable and strange for me to give myself permission for things to be ugly and weird. However, besides aesthetics, to me, there is the beauty of emotion and the inner world. So, in that respect the intuitive painting aligns deeply with my values of beauty, creativity and self-expression. It’s amazing to me how the painting really just paints itself.
The painting above started off with swirling circles that then formed what I thought was going to be a sun or a planet, but then surprisingly turned into a giant cross-eyed snail. Who knew? I had been feeling very tired and sluggish, so I guess it was befitting. It wasn’t complete until I added the red glitter glue which went on all slimy just like a snail trail! Very visceral and fun!
And then there’s my new favorite technique… what Chris called the the “use up your paints” painting. I was fascinated just watching the paint globs drip down the page until they dried.
These are great resources if you’re wanting to dabble in some intuitive panting on your own. But of course the best way to learn about the painting process is to just pick up a brush and let your Inner Muse guide you. Enjoy!
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending Kimberly Wilson’s Hip Tranquil Chick Retreat in New York. Two-plus days full of creativity, yoga, journaling, meditation and lots of other yummy activities – who could ask for more? Oh yeah, and some retail therapy (Kimberly brought pieces from her spring line of TranquiliT eco-clothing) so, of [...]
The final chapter of The 12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women focuses on goal setting and action steps. After three months of exploring the creative process with Jamie Ridler’s Next Chapter book blogging group, it’s important to also have a plan for making it all real. Right now, my big goal is to have my [...]
More right-brain resource goodness: Some silly fun from the Right-Brain Business Plan e-Course: “The Left-Brain Chill Pill” (see photo above) for calming the judging mind and enhancing right-brain creative intuition. Take with two deep breaths. An interesting post that asks is the traditional business world at war with creativity? A graphical look at the val […]
