Search This Blog

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Intuitive Painting



Can you see the woman sitting here? she just appeared here--I love her!

I've been trying to paint every day, but a stomach bug kinda threw me for a loop. Among other things I've realized that chicken soup for three days straight is about two days too many--

About the intuitive style of paintings I've been doing--

I have realized several things about how I paint. First, I think I have always painted intuitively, in that I don't start out a painting with a preconceived idea about what the finished product will look like. One of the ideas that I have come back to over and over again here on the blog is that my paintings really "work" when I am playing and having fun and enjoying the process.

Another thing--while I've always been willing to completely paint over part or all of a painting that didn't work, I am only recently forcing myself to do that. It's hard to paint over something I 'might' like...

Finally, I've noticed that these recent paintings take MUCH longer, in general. I paint and ponder and paint and ponder, and then I think "Wow, this piece really isn't going anywhere," and then all of a sudden, I look at it and think "Whoa! This painting is almost finished!" I have no idea how far along I am in the process at any given point--which fits in well with my general theory of 'have fun with the process' but sometimes makes me feel that I'm spinning my wheels...

Another recent discovery: the watercolor paper that I assumed was a standard size for a mat? Well, it's not. Which meant that last week I had to seriously alter all those pieces I'd been working on... Very disturbing. It required some very serious thinking to figure out which three inch chunk at the edge of a painting was unnecessary.  At the point when I'm almost finished with a painting, the WHOLE THING is necessary!

I'm linking this to Paint Party Friday--hopefully tomorrow I'll make it around to visit everyone!



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

paint and ponder, I love that,

Lynn Cohen said...

I have a few painting that do not fully fit in frames, or the frames cut off parts, parts that are important to the painting and to ME! Poor planning on my part, hard lesson! Put they still hang nicely. Even got into a juried art show one of them did! So go figure, what is one persons imperfect may be another persons real ok!

I do see your woman and she is striking a beautiful pose! HPPF!

janice smith said...

Your lady is beautiful, Karen. I love the color and composition. I've been exploring intuitive painting myself and, like you, I think I pretty much work that way naturally. Have you taken Flora Bowley's Bloom True course? I enrolled in the one that just finished up but I am way behind!

GlorV1 said...

Hope you feel better soon. Yes I can see the lady. It's a great piece. Thanks for sharing. Happy PPF!