It’s the Season of Potential!
From my own personal experience of expression through my art, I know how difficult it is to reach a state of authenticity; where you are creating from a place where you are in a state of ‘flow’.
Many of us are our own harshest critics and I know from teaching adult learners that we can be crushed by a thoughtless comment from a well meaning family member as we proudly show them our efforts.
In my Express Yourself workshop we take a deep dive into learning how to tap into our emotions and use them to create authentic art.
This is by far my favourite time of year, as the time comes for frosty mornings and woolly socks to be replaced with bright blue skies and the busyness of birds as they get ready to welcome the next generation. The world seems full of possibilities and potential in spite of everything we hear on the news or are subjected to on social media.
It was ‘possibilities’ that six artists explored in my ‘Express Yourself’ workshop on Saturday.
From my own personal experience of expression through my art, I know how difficult it is to reach a state of authenticity; where you are creating from a place where you are in a state of ‘flow’. Many of us are our own harshest critics and I know from teaching adult learners that we can be crushed by a thoughtless comment from a well meaning family member as we proudly show them our efforts.
For some this ‘critique’ can be the end of their self expression. We are exposing a vulnerability when we show our work to others and we have to work hard to brush off unwanted opinions and stay the course. It is getting to a stage where we are confident in our ‘process’, are clear about our ‘intent’ and are creating from a place where we are in touch with our emotions. There is a spirituality to this process which I had not discovered until I took a workshop with the wonderful Lesley Humphrey.
I had attended several of Lesleys workshops in the past as I have a deep love of her work, and she is such a generous teacher. She often used the word ‘yeild’ to describe the feeling of allowing the art to flow, and I honestly never understood it until I attended one of her workshops for the Society of Equestrian Artists. I had painted horses for a long time and looking back had always been excited by their energy and spirit. As I look back through my horse paintings I had progressed from painting a horse with as much realism as I could, to injecting their energy through the design, the colours and my brushstrokes. It was not deliberate. I realise now that it was my authentic voice becoming louder as I gained confidence, and Lesley’s encouragement finally allowed me to give myself permission to bring emotion into the game.
From that point I never painted the same again. It takes courage, determination and conviction to paint from the heart. Whilst our logical brain is reminding us of the rules that we are to follow if we want admirers to mistake our paintings for ‘photographs’ our hearts must sing from the rooftops if we want people to buy our art for it’s soul.
I am so proud of every one of the artists that came to Waterside Studio on Saturday. They really had no idea what to expect, and after a few warm up exercises where we attempted to turn the nagging left side if the brain off, we were into an afternoon of exploration and experimentation using their own inspiration reference.
Despite it being an all day and quite intensive deep dive into new territory we all felt so energised by the mutual support and encouragement from each other, that I really hope that they can all inject some of the spirit from the day into future work.
If you would like to experience some of what we did in the ‘Express Yourself’ workshop, then I am adding another date in June.
Places are limited so I am releasing them via my mailing list, so if you are not signed up to receive my emails please click here to be included.
Happy Painting :D
PS If you would like to have a print of one of my equestrian paintings you will find them in my Etsy Shop