What is intuitive painting?
What is intuitive painting?
Persephone acrylic and oil on linen canvas 18 x 14
I first stumbled across intuitive painting several years ago when I was scrolling through art books on Amazon and came across Flora Bowley’s book, Brave Intuitive Painting. I fell in love.
Here was a woman embracing everything good and freeing about the process of creating, and leaving behind all the tension, second-guessing, and general restrictiveness I had sometimes felt in my own work. I just had to try it.
So, what is intuitive painting? It’s a meditative form of painting. There are no mistakes, no desired outcome or expectation. Just fun, free movement that just happens to involve paint.
Let’s set the scene.
I prefer to use a large painting surface, at least 18 x 24 in size, and you can extend that as far as you like, providing you have the space to work on such a large piece of art.
The larger the piece, the more I need to warm up, get my body moving and feel alive. It’s a good idea to put some music on, or even your favorite podcast or movie. Light a candle.
I start with either cool or warm colors, but not both. You will be making several layers, so don’t think about anything at this point. Don’t fall in love with something too soon, because it’s all going to change the more layers you put on, the more depth you create. Think cool colors, warm colors, cool colors, warm colors, and so on. Each time consider leaving a little visible of what you’ve already painted, but only if it feels right.
Let layers fully dry in between so you don’t end up with the dreaded MUD of mixed cool and warm colors.
If you plan on using more than one painting medium, you need to think about the layering process. If you want to use oils and acrylics together like I do, you need to start with the acrylic. Oil will stick to acrylic, but acrylic won’t stick to oil. If you add things like charcoal, you will need to use spray fixative so that your next layer doesn’t obliterate it.
Use brushes with a long handle and only hold the tip. Be free and loose with your mark-making. Try natural sponges, small rollers, combs, found objects, and your fingers to create movement and form. A spray bottle full of water will become your new best friend. Let those drips happen and embrace the mess.
Once I have a few layers on, I like to look for faces. I am partial to portraiture art, so this is my go-to. But you do you—landscapes, animals, and even cityscapes are all possible with this style of painting. I switch to charcoal and pull the face from the dots and smudges I’ve made, and I work this way until I’m happy with the form. Next comes the spray fixative.
More layers, more layers, more layers. Each one bringing me closer to the point where I switch from acrylic to oil. I like to have my fun first, and get down to business later. I’ve always considered oil paint as the more serious medium of the two. So many rules, fat over lean, yada, yada, yada. But I don’t use oil paint everywhere as I feel like the spots where I want the viewer to focus on should be the most finished, while the others should be free and loose.
Now there is one extra step that I’ve recently added in between the acrylic layers and the oil that I haven’t shown here, and that is paper. Tissue paper, or more specifically, Mulberry paper. I am really having a blast adding layers of tissue paper, just like layers of paint, to the process. Once I practice a bit more with this added medium I’ll be posting another video, but for now I’m focused on learning. It takes me back to my very young days in school where you could cut and paste and play. I think all art should feel like this, as William Shakespeare once said: Joy delights in joy.
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