Fearless Painting

I am taking the year-long Lifebook course again this year (a link to the site is on my sidebar) and just January alone was well worth the cost of the course. I am learning to take risks again, to let go of being careful with my art and it was exactly what I needed.

These process photos are from a lesson by Annie Hamman and her little daughter, Tallulah. The lesson was to paint a portrait, but to take turns either with your young child or with your inner child. As you see in the photo above, my woman looks pretty tame in the first layer (adult version).

But in the photo below, my inner child came out to play. The challenge was to not look at it as a face, but just as a canvas to play on. It didn't matter if "important" parts get covered up.

Wow! My inner child sure loves color and has discovered stencils. And was hard to stop! But then my adult(ish) self got her turn and the face started coming to the forefront again. I did love some of the abstraction and made sure to leave some of it.

And again: PLAY! Stencils, stamps and fingerpainting. And color, color, color. So much fun!

And for the last layer I felt that both my adult self and inner child got to have a turn together. I cleaned her face up a little and added a few more stencils. And given how I usually paint, I couldn't resist the drips...

Such a good lesson in connecting to the uninhibited part of ourselves. Not just for painting, but for life. So often we forget to have fun because life can become quite serious. Everything seems to become easier when we inject a little levity. And course, this new approach is already making its way into my other art, but more of that in another post.

I'm linking to the fantastic Paint Party Friday. Head on over for lots of amazing art!!

I hope you are having a wonderful week. Here's to a great weekend ahead.

❧ Silke