Harnessing Painting Power
Our world is filled with a cacophony of sound: voices, shouting, blaring traffic, dissonant music, construction machinery, jets, jackhammers, someone is even yelling at you from your TV to buy their trucks. There are kids, dogs, spouses, doorbells, cell phones: clashing noises that create a mental dissonance and shatter out attention into smaller and smaller fragments. If that is not enough, there is the constant mental chatter of the mind, going round and round on a hamster wheel of thoughts... issues that seem to never be resolved...trials...worries...relationship problems...the nightly news...
Stillness is in such small supply and high demand that it has become a vital resource. Many artists find this still space by painting in the quiet corners of nature. Others find it in the solitude of their studio in the dead of night. Most artists, when they enter their own personal painting power find themselves in a state of relaxed, alert, focussed attention. The rest of the world drops away, time stands still or moves sideways, there is a laser focus.
Yet many of my students find themselves in a panic of indecision and doubt. They chatter away with each other or on the phone while dabbing away aimlessly, and then wondering why they can never fix their bad habits or progress artistically. Can anyone improve any craft under these conditions?
This painting , "Nightfall" 24 x 18 was painted on Sept 4th as a demonstration.
for my class Harnessing Your Personal Painting Power.
The class is about creating a personal painting space both in the exterior (your studio, or painting area )
and interior: finding your personal focus, practice habit and flow. Finding an interior stillness when painting can begin to flow with creativity and power.
