The Art of Forgiveness

Art can reveal so much, I'm learning, through doing the Sips N Strokes classes and hosting my own "Brushes & Booze in the Basement." I've had to establish a few ground rules as a result of different experiences:

1. No self criticism. This one is #1 and a rule I have to remind folks of. It's the one most frequently broken. Especially if someone hasn't painted before. I've observed that people are very critical of their own work and fear messing up. This leads to the next thing...


2. Art is about forgiveness. The canvas is VERY forgiving. You can always layer and change what you've done. This does take time and patience, but it is possible. But you have to move your own self-criticism out of the way. When your canvas doesn't seem to be forgiving you quite like YOU want to be forgiven, then I think the forgiveness is really more about forgiving yourself...and letting your unique creation be an expression of you. It's more important to be gentle with yourself and allow the creative process to happen. It's very freeing when you can look at your painting and accept it as a wonderful and beautiful painting that YOU created. Which leads to...


3. The Morning After Effect. Your painting amazingly looks different and AWESOME the next morning. When you're in the middle of painting with your face 18 inches from the canvas, you are focused on the details, the imperfections, the parts that you don't like. But once you've had some distance and you look at it the next morning as a whole, you have a whole different reaction. Try it, it's really amazing.


4. Painting is about HAVING FUN. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong. That's the only way to mess up is to not have fun and take yourself too seriously. When this starts happening and you start to feel anxious, I recommend that you take a drink, take a break and breathe a little. So that you can, finally....


5. Give yourself permission to take RISKS. I really believe that great art is all about the "R" word. Oh, scary word, I know, because we are afraid to mess up. But, you can only stretch yourself and grow your experience if you take risks. Take a chance and paint OUTSIDE the line or mix some different colors together or try a new kind of stroke. OR heaven forbid, use your fingers (any finger that feels good, Judy). Make a mess with it. Experience just letting yourself experiment and get dirty. Make a messy painting that is unrecognizable and love it because you tried something new.

I am truly anti-rule when I think about art. But I also understand that trying new things can be scary and cause some anxiety, so these rules are not about being trapped inside a box, they are about freeing you to experience something in a different way.

Most of these can probably be applied to our lives, too. I bet if we listened to ourselves and the kind of comments and reactions we have about our paintings that it would reveal really what we feel about ourselves. If you're really critical of your painting, maybe you need to give yourself permission to be more forgiving of yourself and love yourself more. If you find yourself afraid to try something on canvas, maybe you're afraid of trying something new in life and need to give yourself permission to take more risks in other areas. I don't know. But maybe.

Isn't that kinda like the saying...does art imitate life or does life imitate art? I know, personally for sure, that the creative process can be pretty revealing.