What’s it like?
What did you do?
What materials did you use?
What's the set up like?
Where is it…
They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here are 14 to sum up the plein air workshop I facilitated on my property just outside of Brisbane on 12 Nov. 2023.
It was magical!!!
We met at 9:30am and had morning tea/coffee with pastries. Then we launched in to a morning of mark making, negative space drawing and right brain activities. We drew and made marks with our dominant and non-dominant hand. We rotated around and played the game, what do you see? Everyone saw such different things in everyone else's work, highlighting just how incredible and diverse our brains are...some saw mountains, some saw humming birds, some saw big seascapes...It set the tone - each human being has a unique visual language that is exciting and significant in terms of making a contribution to the human narrative about life and the world we co-create together.
We sketched down at the dam, where lotus flowers abound. After a huge lunch (I have a thing for cooking), we launched in to colour - we mixed palettes, spoke about applications of colours and we painted a canvas. We had fresh fruit and cups of tea/coffee/sparkling water and kombucha while we spent the afternoon under the shade of the trees, painting. Everyone left with sketches, a completed painting, small works, a gifted sketchpad, tote bag and a ton of paint all over their bodies and faces... a true sign of creative flow.
I heard from many women prior to the workshop and they shared how they would love to come and love to learn to paint....but that they have a hiccup...They shared, "But I am a perfectionist and I will obsess over every line and mark". I have not painted since I was a child. I will feel so lost"....
Can you relate? Fear of not painting a straight line. Fear of it being something other than the image you have in your head? Fear of making ugly art....Fear of not being 'as good at it as I had desired'....If this is you, first, read below, and then read the last post I did where I shared I always give myself permission to make ugly art...
When you come and paint with me I use a ton of activities to move you from being an inner critic to an inner explorer. Essentially, I blow the whole process wide open and limit the control you have over the paintbrush/palette knife, while expanding your mind so fully that you start to see OPPORTUNITIES where you once feared "errors/mistakes/lines that are out of place"...
I love to give painters long sticks with charcoal attached to them and ask them to make marks, to draw a tree, a lotus flower, a bird, anything...just make BIG gestures, BIG lines and marks and see where the lines take you.
I love to ask painters to paint upside down. Place the still-life object down from the sun and sketch it, upside down. It shifts the perspective and the need to paint straight lines...it expands the visual field.You move in to flow and your brain gets busy seeing patterns and shapes rather than dictating a constant stream of criticism.
Art for me is an internal journey in to absolute freedom from knowing all the answers and forcing outcomes. Creating art is about release. It is about allowing. It is about surrender and it is about excitement...."where can this go and how can I see something new here????"...Life is hard and busy and filled with enough challenges, why would we make our art and creative practices difficult for ourselves. Isn't this supposed to be fun and liberating. Are we not creative beings in general seeking a new outlet for expressing ourselves?
At my workshops we spend a good few hours playing with right brain stimulating activities. It gets you right out of your own way and comfort zone and in to the flow of creativity and expansive energy... One woman loved the stick so much she declared, "This is a Magic Stick, the art creates itself. Nature paints itself when I use the stick"....She took that exact stick home to sketch with.
What is a tool that you use to shift your perspective?
Some people practice yoga inversions to gain some sort of levity and new way of seeing their life.
Some people draw upside down, using shadows or a mirror.
Some of us use sticks to make marks and start paintings.I love to do this. I make marks with my stick and see where I can go...the excitement of creating an entire scene from a gestural line is what keeps me coming back.
And some of us have labradors that are cheeky and curious and have a desire to get in to everything and do and be everything while out in the world, often embarrassing their human (me).... Dogs humble us so much....
Would love to hear what you do when you need to break free from the life and joy limiting patterns of perfectionism?
Share in the comments or shoot me a note.
xxJ
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