One Painting, Many Stages (or Trust the Process)

I'm not usually the most patient person. I like quick results, especially when it comes to making art, and when I say quick I mean the piece is done at the end of one art-making session.

Um, really? Though sometimes I manage to do just that, it doesn't always work that way.

Allow me to indulge a little and offer you a glimpse into the making of one of my new favourite pieces...

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One night I created a background with my brayer, a quick art-making session that resulted in this:

I saw a woman meditating in an urban oasis. I liked the colours and almost left it as it was, but I knew it wasn't finished so the next night I did this:

I kept the woman and meditation theme but ditched the urban feel in the background. The dark "eggplant" colour was a pure accident that left me frustrated. Interesting, yes, but certainly not finished.

Feeling stuck and tapping into my art mantra #2, Can't Be Too Precious, I spent the next day flipping the piece around on all sides to see if anything jumped out at me. Seeing it upside down triggered something:

 I saw abstract figures in a snowy landscape so I moved on to this...

... and finally to this:

The Gift, 9 1/2" x 12" acrylics on mat board

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The moral of this story?

Don't be afraid to explore a piece from a different perspective. Trust the process, it usually knows where to take you.

Art-making Mantra #3: Just Play

"Curiosity gets us further than curriculum. Serious art requires serious play - and play, by definition, is anarchic, naughty."

~ Julia Cameron, Walking in This World

Every time I channel this mantra I hear the sing-song voice of my first abstract painting teacher: "Just play", she'd say when I got too stressed out about a particular piece.

What does that mean?

the result of anarchic, messy, play - a piece in progress

In the context of working on a specific project, it means loosening up.

Play is letting the brush dance lightly on the canvas to the chaotic rhythms of Coltrane. It's spending half an hour following the evening sun with your camera, guided only by shadows and light. It's making wild and crazy marks on the page with your palette knife because it feels good.

Play means not thinking, not trying, not striving. It means suspending the censor and not worrying about where the piece is going. There'll be time for that later.

Play means being in your creativity.

Art-making Mantra #3: Just Play.

How could you let yourself play in your art today? Whatever your medium, I dare you to let your brush dance.

Art-making Mantra #1: Go to the Table + An Invitation

Last month I gave you Art-making Mantra #2 (Can't Be Too Precious!), today I present to you the one  that came before.

These past few weeks I wanted to paint, but resisted in a really BIG way.

When I mentioned my painting woes on Facebook a friend of mine responded "I hear either fear or expectations. Enter them or set them aside. Move forward." He was bang on. (Thank you SZ!)

Time to pull out Art-making Mantra #1: Go to the Table.

Dancer II - work in progress, 8x16 on canvas

a product of going back to the table

The harder I resist painting the more I need to get my butt to my art table and play with paints. "Just go to the table" I tell myself.

The dancer pictured above is a result of yesterday's push to move forward. I had no clue she was going to come out, I started with gobs of green paint on a blank canvas and went from there. I started.

An invitation

In the spirit of building on yesterday's momentum I intend to go to the art table every day this week, Monday to Friday, five days in a row. I've done it before using five pieces of cardboard (cardboard is a trick I use to take away the intimidation factor), I can do it again. I'll report on it here to keep me accountable - the good, the bad and the ugly.

Here's today's result:

Dancer III - work in progress, 12x12 on canvas board

the scale and legs look weird, but I like the skirt and her right arm so I'll work with those

No expectations. Just presence, practice and play.

It doesn't matter if your table is covered in paints, polaroids or paragraphs, the mantra isn't media-dependent. The important thing is to start whatever you're resisting.

Care to join me in my five-day challenge? It's always more fun with company.

Art-making Mantra #2: Can't Be Too Precious

I spent some time at the art table yesterday and have a few new pieces in the works:

work in progress #1 (10x10 on canvas)

working title: raining hearts

It's an ongoing challenge for me to leave a piece unfinished at the end of a painting session and pick it back up again. Afraid of ruining a good thing, works in progress tend to stay shelved for months before they see the light again. Especially if I like what I have.

work in progress #2 (12x12 on cardboard)

I like the movement in this one, but I'm not sure where to go with it. Irony?

Enter Stephanie's art-making mantra #2: Can't be too precious.

(I credit my abstract painting teacher Beulah McLellan for this one!)

I can't let an unfinished piece become so precious that I won't touch it for fear of losing what I have. I mean, if it's unfinished I have to do something right? It's a matter of trusting the process (art-making mantra #3 perhaps?).

So today I will trust, pick up my two pieces and see what comes.

Wish me luck!