Angels In My Studio Video Lesson #4: Chris Zydel's Intuitive Painting Process

This process will help you to let go, to listen to the sounds of your intuition whispering -- or screaming -- to you to choose a certain color, or paint in a particular animal, to paint big or tiny. This practice will bring you out of your thinking mind and into a deep place of feeling your body and staying open to magic.

With practice, this process will open you to the ways the Divine speaks to you and through you.

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This section involved making 2 paintings...

1. 5-10 minutes... messy, big brush, fingers... where ever it takes you.

2. 30-45 minutes... no plan! Just go with the flow. Don't stop or stand back, keep going. 

Then doing some journaling after each about the process and painting. 

Both pieces:

Set-Up:

*8 of my favorite brushes

*lots of water

*paint ready to go

*paper (90 lbs, best I got)

Exercise #1:

5 minutes of MESS.

Slopped the paint on and smeared it, much of it with my fingertips... that was the easy part.

Made pretty dots with dots on top of the dots, then went back and smeared them out partially dried... that was the hard part.

...and I was surprised I did it, I *never* go back over specially painted bits deliberately. NEVER, My critic was having a real WTF?! moment when the dots went bye-bye. (tough!)

I felt very energized which was also unlike me after an Art-ing dry spell. Usually I'm slow and precise with the 1st project 'back'... like I have to prove something by making something extra-good.

  After stopping and looking at it I can see movement, lots & lots of movement and a Triskelion. 

Looked up the meaning online here:

http://www.whats-your-sign.com/triskelion-celtic-symbol-meaning.html

Which very much jived with how/what I was feeling and a few issues I've been wrestling with lately. Interesting...

  

Exercise #2:

This one asked to be rotated around as I worked... 

When I stopped to rotate I clicked a quick picture.  (little bad?)

 The part of the painting with the most energy was all the drips I smeared in... they were paint in motion. The critic didn't like the messing up of the nice white portions. I was feeling super calm and fluidly relaxed while doing this painting... connected. Wasn't expecting anything to show-up, just enjoying the process and well... *she* had other ideas.

More paint slopping like the 1st exercise and fingers in there too... I kept dripping paint on the page then feeling a need to smear the drips in where they landed.

 Bit of dry-brushing... and heaps of Gold added. 

You can't see the shine but it got pretty guilded at this stage...

 FLIP!

Drips and Dots and Dry Brush Stripes... 

and lots more Gold.  

The red got dripped everywhere... again, just streaked it in where it landed.

 FLIP!

This is when my critic got grumpy. The bold white strip I kept feeling a need to re-do it, keep it clean... then here I grabbed a thin brush and added  lots of brown. It was soooo slobby after the pristine, clean white... another OMG... why? moment. 

LOTS of drips streaked in including the 2 big ones that partially dried on the big gold patch.

 FLIP!

Started with the silver stars then more and more and more paint... kept grabbing a streak here, a streak there all different colors. LOTS of black... dipped a black paint covered brush in the clean water and then threw it at the paper. I'm wearing a fair bit to... my wrists are all polka-dotted! lol  

More dots and a blob of blue.

 FLIP!

NOW I SAW HER...

I added some more red to her lips, the green tear was a drip and traced out her eye.

You can really see the shine of all the gold at this angle, the whole painting glows with it. 

Cleaner photo, less shine: