Awaken Joy; Intuitive Painting

When do we close the doors on parts of ourselves? Sometimes it just takes a chance word from someone we respect.

Many years ago, I drew a little person—an elf?--into a still life in art class. He just seemed to want to be there, so I drew him in. The teacher asked me why, and when I answered, “he wanted to be there”, she said, “You mean YOU wanted him there.” I don't know why, but a door closed for me then. It seemed that allowing something to emerge from my subconscious onto the paper wasn't allowed, and I've felt...limited in my artwork since then.

I want to open that door back up, but how?

So, I bought a book: Intuitive Painting Workshop, by Alena Hennessy.

Today I tried out the first "lesson" in Alena's book.

I thought I'd make a Christmas card design. Alena suggests using hand made or interesting papers for the background. I made my own background papers. That's as far as I got, but it was enough! I'm back in my studio having fun! When the papers are dry, I'll do the next step.

I tried both regular copy paper, and 90# watercolor paper
 
 





  



Recipe for Crinkle Paper Background: 

• Wet paper all over on one side
• Crinkle it up into a ball
• Drop paint on in here and there, until you have as much color as you want. Remember, the inside of the ball will be uncolored unless you take extra care to drop color deep into the crevasses.

card made with crinkle paper background

• Carefully lay the paper out flat to dry