Here is my normally neat, tidy, peaceful studio above the garage at our house at Wintergreen, VA, about 3 hours south of our real lives in Reston. I do careful oils and watercolors, always with a clear idea during the process of how I intend the finished piece to look.... even if it usually falls short of the mark :)
Recently I've been taking an e-course in Intuitive painting called Bloom True, by the wonderful, inspiring Flora Bowley. (With apologies for any unintentional misrepresentation...... ) she takes entirely the opposite approach--- paint is applied fairly randomly in many layers, then you begin to incorporate personal imagery and pull it out of the painting, still continuing to add layers of color and pattern as the forms develop. You apply paint with foam brushes, your fingers, bubble wrap..... whatever tools you like. This is not for the faint hearted, you can't get too attached to the results at any point or you may stifle future possibilities, as often bits you quite like get covered up or changed. She emphasizes that for all the beginning stages she has no clear idea where the picture will end up but "trusts the process". The results are amazing, even if our beginning stages are often "awkward teenagers"! It's very interesting and challenging to abandon preconceived goals to this degree, follow your intuition and just go with the flow. And it's MESSY!!!
Here's what my studio looks like now..... note the plastic sheeting on the floor for the squirting of water and the dripping! My pictures are at stage 4, nowhere near completion. They have a layer of warm colors, cool colors, black and white, then glazes. Tomorrow they'll have changed again. Most of us on the course are taking photos at each stage to chart the evolution and sharing images for feedback. It's a very enthusiastic, supportive group.
What will we evolve into?
Here is the view from my studio door through to the backyard. The strange looking bare palm tree is a wind sculpture from Canyon Rd in Santa Fe, it looks lovely when it turns!
