Intuitive Painting at Tewkesbury Art Studios

I attended an Intuitive Painting weekend (10 hours) at Tewkesbury Art Studios. I learnt what intuitive art is and was guided through exploring my creativity.

I signed up for this course because I wanted to grow in a more creative and less planned approach to painting. I needed to gain confidence to take risks. The weekend was 23rd and 24th September 2017 at Tewkesbury Art Studios run by the artist Jane Clatworthy. There was me and 5 other ladies there on the course. I was the youngest person by a lot.

I have been to Tewkesbury Art studios before so I look out regularly for what they have coming up and saw this and decided to give it a try.

I really enjoyed it even though it was extremely tiring. I loved chatting to the other artists that were on the course and working alongside them. I enjoyed having an artist critique my work as the two days went by.

First of all Jane spoke to us about intuitive art and she showed us some examples of her own work. Then we did some lined contour drawings to warn us up. Then Jane demonstrated a piece of art on a piece of paper rather than canvas and we had to try it out ourselves to experiment with new techniques. I found that when I tried it out that having areas of the page that are not too busy was important and I learnt from my mistakes. I didn't think about the fact that I would be building up in layers so my first layer of colour was what I wanted the final layer to be. There was too much boldness everywhere and I needed areas for your eye to rest.

After lunch we started on our main piece on a big canvas. I used skills I had learnt from my practice. At the end of the first day I hadn't really accomplished what I wanted and ended up again with what could have been a finished painting. With some helpful guidance from Jane I realised I knew what to do the next day.

On the second day we started off sitting in a circle saying what each of us needed to do next then as soon as I started I put a thin layer of thinned white paint over all of the dramatic colours I'd painted the previous day. This completely changed my piece of work. Then in the shapes I saw in the charcoal i got to the stage where I had a vision for my final result and saw a childlike big flower. At first I wasn't sure by Jane reassured me. I blocked in the vase that I saw with dark red and it all came together.

Then I thought I was coming to the end but there was something I needed to do on the left because it was too busy. I blocked out some of the colour around the flower and then filled some of the charcoal shapes and scribbles I had done earlier with coloured pastels.

I learnt that there are many layers in paintings that give them depth. Before I attended this class I thought the first layer was the last.

I created a mixed media painting on canvas. This will help me towards my goal for my final piece. It inspired me to have the confidence to use my big canvases and made me realise that when I do art if it goes wrong I shouldn't stop and get rid of it but that I can cover over it with other colours and shapes and add to it if I don't like it.

I would like to attend another of these weekends.