Fearless Painting Journey

I was not going to post this painting till it was truly done but that was mainly because of fear, that fear gremlin keeps raising his head. First though I want to talk a little about Fearless Painting. After taking BIG I became part of a tribe of fearless painters.   Fearless Painting is intuitive painting, if you are called to paint an elephant you paint one. The goal is not about the final project but the process you go through as you paint.  Oh there is so much more but that is the basic tenant. Sometime Fearless Paintings can be ugly. Which is where the fear gremlin comes in. Do I share the process, the ugly parts as well as the pretty ones. In my desire to be more authentic person I fell that I need to.  The critic tells me what if someone comes to my site expecting to see art and sees this ugly painting.  They won't come back, they  won't be inspired. Pah what a load of rubbish, right. Yes I think that at times and at other times the gremlin wins when I think oh I cant show that because it isn't pretty.

I don't know about you but I know I love it when other artists show their work, all of it.  The frustrating pieces and the glorious ones.  I like hearing their stories of their lives, even the not so pretty parts. So what makes me think that no one would want to hear mine. Those who don't want to will just leave and that is ok because not everyones story will appeal to everyone. That doesn't mean we shouldn't tell it. So part of being authentic is putting yourself out there, sharing your story even one little bit at a time.

Now on to Deep and the reboot of this class. I mentioned before that the class was stopped last year and we are doing a do over.  Actually the class this time is completely different.  We are painting on the same painting for 6 weeks. The painting will be evolving over that time. So I am  going to share the first 3 weeks.

This is after the first week. I started with two pieces of paper. I painted a lot of this with my left hand. I think the left side either looks like a garden or a french market stall. I am not sure what was going on in the right side. There are bits of a house, some stones and not much else.

In week 2, I worked on the right half of the painting. I added flowers, the barn and raven. I still didn't like it, felt like it was 2 paintings.

On to week 3, I added another piece of paper. Finished the bird, put in a background and added Flynn. Never having painted a dog before I found it a challenge. I was not that happy with the way he turned out. So I decided to see him as a representation of Flynn, rather than looking just like him.

Later in the week I added grass and worked on Flynn some more. The green grass under the raven wanted to become poppies. They need some more work but I kind of like them. I think the painting is evolving to be about my life, dog, birds, garden. It will be interesting to see where the next three weeks take me. I hope you will enjoy going on the journey with me.

At first I made his eyes way too big, they are a little better here. I now see him as a work in progress. I will probably fiddle with him until the painting is done.

Pulling out sections of the painting is always fun. I like this little sweet spot.
















This little row of abstract poppies make me smile. Its like they are "saying look at me".