When I get caught up on a painting, like I did the other day, not sure where to go –
that’s when I stop, pause and go inward.
I turn off the music if it’s on, sit down, close my eyes, and center myself.
And wait.
Just in that centering, I gain clarity.
The other day, for instance, from that centered place I knew that I needed to focus on one painting at time.
So I let all the others in the series go for a moment and just picked one.
I looked at it, appreciated it, picked off the remnants of blue tape on the edges and declared it done.
I was delighted to find that the piece had different meanings depending on which way I turned it.
We can look outside ourselves for support and advice on our work, but I find the very best advisor is myself.
And not just myself but my Self. That part I connect with in meditation. The guidance I hear in the inner stillness.
What about you? When you are working on something and are not sure which way to proceed, what do you do to figure it out?
Responses to “My best advisor is myself”
Patti
Sometimes I just let the beginning painting sit and every once in a while think about it. At our art group a couple of weeks ago I heard some of the members who are taking lessons from a wonderful watercolor teacher that I have also taken classes from and will probably take more classes in the future. I love learning new techniques but don’t like copying the style of the teacher. Causes a bit of a problem at times. I took the same class as my fellow members some time ago and was not happy with the outcome and worked on the painting about six months later and then just thought it was not what I wanted – too boring and not my style. Then, when I heard my fellow members complain about not being able to finish the painting I took mine out and made some drastic changes and added some items of interest and took it to our next meeting. Now everyone who took the recent class is enthused and knows that they can just add something of their own instead of following all the ideas of the teacher. I am always pleased with the outcome when I just go with my own color/idea/whatever and finish the painting from the class.
Michele Theberge
I love what you shared here! It’s great that you were able to, through your example, inspire the other painters to trust their own creative impulses and make a leap with their work!
Secondly, it’s so true that just putting a piece of work to the side for a while can be so clarifying. It works like a charm every time. If I am a patient. One day, I’ll pick the piece back up and know EXACTLY what to do with it.
Barb
If a painting is not going the way I expect it to, I’ll do one of 2 things; hang it where I will walk by it at least a dozen times of day or cover it up and not look at it again until I have a feel for it. If this fails and it has been know to happen, I will just work on drawing for a bit or pretend I am 5 years old and just let go loose on a painting without any expectations. And then if none of these things work, I will head to the art store where I have been know to spend a good part of the day there. I usually get excited about coming back with some new products, One of my new loves is the pouring medium which I have you to thank for after watching your video.
Michele Theberge
Barb – I appreciate how you have developed clear-cut strategies that work for you and you don’t give up. If A doesn’t work, then B, then C! I have found both work for me as well in terms of having the work where you will see it and then also having it out of sight. Thank so much for sharing with us!
Jenny Fryer
It took a long time to break the habit, but when a piece wasn’t going my way and I would get stuck on it, I tended to overwork it to death until it was a total loss. Now once I start to get stuck in a spot, I stand up and walk away. A good 10 minutes normally works, just go and breathe and reset, look at the sky and clear the mind. I fall into the old habit of overwork it to death from time to time, but I find it happening less and less 🙂
Michele Theberge
Yes, Jenny! I can so relate. I used to overwork my paintings, too. Not so much because they weren’t going my way but because I just felt ” hard work” was the best way – more was always better. And nothing good could come easily. I think some of that stuff is hard-wired into us in our culture. What we learn as artists about the creative process could benefit so many people. That stepping away to look at the sky. Beautiful.
Jenny Fryer
It was kind of funny, I went outside to take a breather and was staring straight up the trunk of a tree. Before I know it, there’s other people next to me looking up the same tree trying to figure out what I’m looking at. One woman asked me what I was looking at and I told her, we tend to forget what it looks like to see a tree canopy outward. We normally look at them from the side. 🙂
Juhli Caldwell
If I do not like the way things are going then there is nothing to lose by trying something else and sitting in meditation often opens up the perfect next step to”save” the piece.I have a piece now on a deadline which is stuck and on the cusp of some kind of radical change- but the change has not come clear yet. So I wait- maybe today the way will open up. However, sometimes I really like something that has happened with the work but know that it is not finished. I am so attached to it that I am unable to move beyond and make the next move as I think I might reck the beauty just created. Takes me a while to disconnect first and be ok with moving forward . Once I have the mindset, next step often will come in a flash of inspiration. I am about to pour on one of my beloved beauties. Thanks for the video!
Michele Theberge
Juhli! NIce to hear from you! And thanks for reminding us about that trap of treating something as too precious, being afraid to wreck what is there can be such a trap, can’t it? And prevent us from moving forward. Have fun with the pouring!
Carolyn King
Hi, Michele, and All! I’m adding one more voice to the conversation to affirm that backing off to allow ‘inner knowing’ to process and then contribute to a work-in-progress pretty much ALWAYS works for me and the adult students I coach in the studio. At times when I am just stuck (or one of my students feels that way), I will get out a fan of paint chips from a hardware store and just rummage through colors next to the piece to ‘see’ if a spark related to color may get things moving again. Other times, I’ll simply work on another surface for awhile letting my mind’s eye wander over to the stuck one until creative process swoops in & takes over both pieces. The main thing is to open up to trusting that I don’t have “To Know” all the time exactly what I’m doing or going to do. I’m reminded of the myth of Amour & Psyche where she (Psyche) is given tasks
like sorting grain or gathering the Golden Fleece in order to be able to see her beloved, Amour with her own eyes. The tasks she is given all are able to be accomplished when she approaches them ‘sideways’ as opposed to head-on. This myth/metaphor works so beautifully when we think about our studio practice. Muscling through in an ego/”masculine” approach where we plan and decide and ‘know’ ahead of time is so very opposite from including reflective, meditative, Psyche-like approaches. Many thanks to you, Michele, for facilitating this conversation! Carolyn
Michele Theberge
Carolyn, I so appreciate your lending your voice to this and for sharing about the myth of Amour and Psyche. That sideways approach interests me. I’m curious what “sideways” means to you. And thanks, too, for sharing your paint chips tip. Another great one!
Carolyn King
Michele, ‘sideways’ here for me refers to the way Psyche approached her tasks. For example, when asked to sort through a silo of grain, she lay down in overwhelm and fell asleep. As as she slept, ants, taking pity on her plight, sorted the grains one by one for her so that when she awoke, the silo was all orderly and sorted. For me, this metaphor refers to us allowing Inner Resources to sort the ‘problems out’ (whatever the problems may be) on deeper, less conscious levels. The story also reminds us to partner with the power of Nature…both in Outer and Inner reality! In the studio, the way this works for me is that if I’m stuck on a piece, I’ll place it close by but off to a side so I can glance at it as I work on something else. It feels as if my right eye, or right lobe, or some aspect
of my awareness continues to ‘work’ on resolving the stuck piece as I consciously address a second art work directly in front of me.
Hope this makes a bit more sense!!! The idea of ‘sideways’ is about indirectly ‘working’ on a piece in a similar way to Psyche collecting the Golden Fleece as her last task. In the myth, she was told to bring fleece from a huge, scary, ram. Instead of approaching the ram directly, she wisely waited until he was looking another way and then she gathered the wool from the bushes he had passed……hence my calling this the ‘sideways’ approach!!! Very much
a Feminine Principle way to mine one’s unconscious worlds for imagery and meaning, indeed!!!
Thanks for your note, Michele!
Yours in creativity and passion and reflection!!!
Carolyn
Michele Theberge
Ah, yes! I like your use of the term “sideways” and it is a very Yin approach. Thanks for sharing the details of the myth. I did not know it.
Lovely metaphor!
Tesia Blackburn
Thanks Michele! Love this post. I have a solid practice and I teach it to my students, it’s my paint/look ratio. For every 15 minutes I paint, I have to “look” for 15 minutes. I even have an egg timer in the studio. It’s so important for artists to value this looking time. It’s actually where all the hard work gets done, isn’t it?
Michele Theberge
Wow, Tesia! What an awesome tip. I have never thought to do that with a timer. Although, I would think sometimes one might be on a roll or in the middle of a process that needs completing before the “look” time. But I am curious to try this out!
jbrucker
I have a basic rule that if you get to a point in a work where you don’t know what to do next, stop. Put the brush down. Take a break. Give it time to breathe. It is important not to rush- I have ruined many a piece by aggressively “fixing” it and ending up with a mess! Then, once I am calm and have an idea about the next step, I go back to it.
Michele Theberge
Absolutely, Julia. I can’t hear this enough.
Eileen
very wise
Libia A Goncalves
What I usually do is getting away from the canvas, Sit in my comfortable position in the faraway sofa and stare at it. One of my sons always make the comment: “There she is, doing nothing” If only he knew.
Sometimes it work, when it doesn’t I leave it alone and grab another one, a different subject.
Michele, what is that beautiful blue thing you have displayed a the beginning of this page? could you share the technique?
Michele Theberge
I love that you have a comfy sofa to sit in. Missing in my studio. I’ve been looking for a mid-century arm chair to view my paintings from (takes up a bit less floor space.)
Libia, I’ll do a post on that technique. Thanks for asking!
jesse
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thanks!!
Eileen
I love working with the unseen world, the world of dreams and the Akashic Records. So, when I am stuck, I open my Records and wait for guidance, or see what appears. Sometimes I open my Records before I begin my work..it is very expansive and sometimes it takes a narrowing with the inner eye to see what tweaking needs to happen.
Michele Theberge
Lovely that you have these tools to work with, Eileen! Exciting to hear!
Eileen
I feel blessed and grateful.