Fearless Painting

Another idea, inspired by a 21 Secrets Class.

Connie calls her class in the first edition of 21 Secrets 2010 where I too taught; Get It Out – Get It Down, and in it the students are allowed to explore an intuitive way of painting, you know, painting without a plan or too much thinking. It’s an Art Journal Class. Just start… paint freely in your art journal, to help you get unstuck – and get what’s in your heart out and on the paper!

I followed along her video’s and couldn’t help but smiling. Connie’s flirting happiness is contagious! I created a painting in my own art journal, the way Connie described in her class.

I am pretty sure this fearless woman was not an image in my head before I started painting, but she is what emerged on the paper.

What came out was indeed a fearless flying woman, with pink hair and a bright red dress.

What I liked most about taking this part of the 21 Secrets class is Connie’s emphasis on how to stand up when you paint, turn up the music and even move your body as you paint. I don’t own an easel as is suggested to use, but I stood up by my desk and used a big brush. Now an easel is up on my wish list of course I would love to have such a thing pointing out to visitors that I am indeed an artist to paint by and maybe experiment on bigger canvas. Connie paints in her art journal on her easel too, and she listens to great music while she paints. That’s quite new to me too.

I love silence, but also the various podcasts and shows I listen to, and audio books. So I tend to forget my neglected play-list for weeks sometimes. But when I come back to it I always fall in love with music again. It is really inspiring to listen to music while you create. Just letting the mind sing along or wander freely.

The page prepared to be painted with layers and lots of texture:

The texture is created with a lot of gel medium slapped on to the paper. Then I used a hair dryer for the first time, to speed up the drying time. Fun stuff!

You can still join the 21 Secrets Class, but only until December first. If you are a member of art journaling.ning (it is free!) you can join Connie’s group Fall into Art Journal Love and watch her paint, journal and do all kinds of magic stuff in her art journal to inspire YOU to do the same. Inspiration galore!