Art Tutorials Archives - Mindful Art Studio

Trusting the Process: Notes from an Intuitive Art Journaling Class

05.31.2018 by Amy Johnson Maricle // 4 Comments

Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

I’ve been having the most wonderful spring, spending time with my students in the Diving Deep intuitive art journaling class. As often happens, I’m learning almost just as much as the students as I teach. I’m so excited to be able to share some of the Diving Deep process with you. Trusting the process is a big piece of the puzzle in intuitive painting, so I’d love to share with you about what that means for me, and show you how many transformations it sometimes takes before a page reaches its final iteration.

This piece started as an abstract watercolor page with pinholes.

I didn’t ultimately feel the page had reached its potential, and it’s in the Strathmore watercolor journal I like a lot, so I decided to use it to do a smoky background. I was quite pleased with the result, especially the light. However, I did not care for the mark on the left page, so this spread was a good candidate for further work.

Getting started can sometimes be hard. Where to start? This is a place where a lot of people get hung up, and never get started. I work on backgrounds all the time so that I always have something to start with.

I like to look at pictures I’ve collected and works in my own journals for inspiration. Starting with a background such as this one, and an inspiration photo or two helps give me a starting point. After looking at the mysterious, green background, and many ocean themed and pattern driven inspiration photos, I had a sense of wanting to paint cellular shapes in gold. Soon I added a circle of yellow, but I soon covered in teal, and started to really enjoy the colors that were developing before me.

Something seemed to be emerging near the bottom, and I thought it was some sort of nest or cocoon.

I added something that I thought might be eggs or berries, but they soon disappeared. Can you see how I let the process lead me rather than trying to be so in control of it? I try not to force anything too much. That beautiful green background was practically gone, but if I was going to work intuitively and trust the process, I had to be willing to let it go.

I wasn’t sure what I was seeing or where the piece was going. I think this not knowing stage is a place where a lot of people give into the anxiety of the unknown and give up. Sometimes they put the work away all together, and other times they settle for something trite and safe. There’s nothing wrong with that if it fills your soul. But if you are looking to dive into the depths of your inner landscapes, I find it usually takes a willingness to dig deeper.

Sitting with the anxiety of the unknown in our art has deep parallels to our lives. Not everything we feel is pretty. Not everything we experience happens on a liner path. Not all the outcomes are clear from day one. We can’t possibly know what’s going to happen, so we have to walk through our lives with a certain amount of faith in the process of putting one foot in front of the other.

To do that, we all have routines that help organize our lives. We trust our routines, they make us feel safer. It is the same with our art. My art routines help me tolerate the uncomfortableness of not knowing if my efforts will result in a piece I don’t like.

I think part of why the Diving Deep class is so powerful is that within an intimate, supportive group, artists have the chance to experiment with techniques, but also find the habits that help them trust the process and translate their intuitive voice onto the page.

After a lot of back and forth, looking, listening, and waiting, I ultimately realized that this piece was all about the enjoyment and celebration of color. This became a guiding force in each decision I made moving forward.

And despite this realization, I did get stuck again, but each time it happened, when I sat back, I’d return to looking, waiting, and listening, and the art reminded me of where I was going.

It’s funny how we need so many reminders about what matters, isn’t it? And with our art, it’s the same. It’s the process that matters. Art is about you taking time to listen deeply to yourself and the world around you. It’s about an exploration of what is, in all it’s color and depth.

Is IS all about the color. And the diving in. I hope you dive into your journal today. You can get some help getting started here.

Creatively Yours,

Amy

*The links provided in this post are affiliate links. That means, at no extra cost to you, if you decide to click the link and purchase something, a small fee will go towards the work of Mindful Art Studio to empower the artist in all of us. Thank you!

Let’s Make Perfectly Imperfect Art

05.04.2018 by Amy Johnson Maricle // 2 Comments

Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

In my Diving Deep class, we focus on learning to dance between intuition and technical skill. The skill we have been focusing on this week, blind and semi-blind contour drawing, is one that can really call up the inner critic. Blind contour drawing also offers tons of opportunity for self-reflection, surrender, mindful attention, gorgeous attention to detail, and the development of your intuitive, personal style. As a teacher, I dance between guiding students in technical skills, while also helping them to hear their own inner wisdom about what each art piece needs. Above all, I’m encouraging us all to be on a journey of making perfectly imperfect art. The magic is in the imperfections.

As with anything, folks come to class with a range of experience and comfort level with the techniques. One of the things I offer in addition to the live videos is to continue practicing and posting the techniques myself. I try to offer a mix of inspiring images, and images that show my mistakes, and how to dance with them.

Here’s a good example: I tend to do blind contour drawings in a very slow, detail-oriented way. I almost never do completely blind contours, unless it’s for an exercise. I enjoy semi-blind drawing where I peek at my paper a little. I also take my time and don’t go too quickly. One of my students shared a video of artist, Phil Hansen, doing blind portraits of people in 1.5 minutes. I thought this sounded like a fun challenge.

I decided to use a picture of my brother as a child and do 3 drawings this way. As you can see, there’s not much recognizable here at first glance. However, look more. See if you can find some details of accuracy, even in the distortion. See if you can find playful creatures in these drawings. They are really quite fun, actually.

One of the things I love about teaching live classes online is that it pushes me too. I had this rich background, and while looking at ostriches in National Geographic one evening, I had the idea to put an ostrich face staring at the viewer on this page.

I went to our friend, Google Images, to find the right expression on the right bird. I found it and here’s my semi-blind contour drawing of her:

Now, I don’t have rights to the picture, so I can’t share, but I can tell you that I’ve changed several details on this model. The biggest difference is the right side. The mouth and the eye got smushed up because I made some “mistakes.” However, thank goodness I do blind drawings in pen and could not erase, because that mistake made the sassy expression that is the magic of this bird.

The right side nostril was also drawn in the wrong spot, so I gave myself permission to adjust that when I painted her in.

How to draw a blind contour, blind contour drawing, perfectly imperfect art — Meet Jeanine the Ostrich. “Whatchoo lookin’ at?”

Let’s get busy making some mistakes.

Oh and speaking of embracing imperfect art, I’ll be co-hosting a super cool workshop this coming Wednesday, May 9th at 12pm EST on a private webinar page. Lauren Hooper, of Lauren-Likes and Get Messy Art Journaling and I will be talking about Travel Journaling. We want to help you take your journal everywhere. This is the secret to finding time to make art – you carry it with you! We will be sharing all our best tips, prompts, and how to get over the fear of creating in public.

You can register by joining Lauren’s list right here: JOIN THE TRAVEL JOURNALING WEBINAR!

I hope to see you there!

Creatively Yours,

Amy

Blending Art & Writing In Your Intuitive Art Journal

04.05.2018 by Amy Johnson Maricle // 4 Comments

Dear Wonderful, Creative You:

I’ve been thinking about how to give you some of the goodies that I’ve been developing for my Diving Deep: Intuitive Art Journaling class, and I’ve got a sweet idea. The PDF that I’m developing for the class is THOROUGH. I love being able to develop solid and inspiring resources for you. I know that not everyone learns the same way, and I’ve realized how helpful a written guide is. With that in mind, I wanted to share some of the lessons about blending art & writing in your intuitive art journal. I think blending art and writing doesn’t come naturally to all of us, but can be so cathartic and beautiful in art journal pages.

So my gift to you today is an excerpt from the Diving Deep class PDF. I hope you enjoy these techniques and share them on social media with #mindfulartstudio so we can all inspire each other!

Using Text in Your Art Journal

The text on your page is not just writing, it’s a part of the art piece. Of course, you can always leave things more loose, letting them evolve naturally. I do this often as well. It’s important to make space in your journal for the ugly stuff too.

Sometimes I NEED to just let go of the aesthetics and do what feels good, regardless of how it looks. Other times, it’s a blend of following intuition and thinking about it as “art.” What helps me decide what I need that day is to tune into my body before I begin to create, and set an intention to honor my needs in the moment.

Having said that, let’s talk about using writing as a part of your artistic composition on the page for those times when you want to blend your intuition with aesthetics. You want your writing to look like a natural part of the piece, not something you slapped on top of it as an afterthought.

I use writing in several different ways. Try them all, and then experiment with your own ways as well:

Use writing to create a textured background.

I frequently write on a blank journal page and then draw or paint over it, covering some or all of my words. The first image with the triangles shows writing with triangles drawn over, and then a layer of smoky gesso, and then collage. The second image shows writing, smoky layers of high flow acrylic paint, collage, and gel pen for the branching lines. I love how layering art techniques in this way allows me to transform my feelings on the page. I can go from feeling stressed and confused, or even icky, to relaxed – like I have a handle on things. Sometimes the symbols that emerge – like with the fish and bird in these two pictures, have powerful metaphors that help calm my feelings.

Use text partially hidden in the imagery.

The image on the left has writing in the white “smoke” that surrounds the figure. It doesn’t jump off the page, but rather is a secret to be discovered. I like this element of mystery and how it matches the feel of the piece. The blue piece on the right uses the writing almost as part of the line work on the page. It’s hard to read in many spots. That suited me well in this piece, as I didn’t want others to easily read it.

Use text as a supporting element to the focus imagery.

I like to create images and colors on the page without a plan, see what comes up, and write a few phrases that encapsulate the thoughts and feelings that emerge. I find this process very cathartic.

Use writing as the central focus of the page.

With this, you want to be sure that your writing is placed in a way that marries well with the imagery on your page. It can’t ignore the imagery, the colors, and the rest of the piece, but needs to play nice with it.

I can’t wait to see what you create with these ideas. I hope you dive deep into your intuitive process. And if you are longing to dive even DEEPER, we have just 5 spots left in our live class, Diving Deep: Intuitive Art Journaling and we would love for you to join us. You can learn more here.

Creatively Yours,

Amy