Taking a class at the Makerie with Flora Bowley was amazing- especially since I am trying to reducing my “tightness” when arting. She had so many ideas for how to overcome that. Thought it was perfect that her new book, Brave Intuitive Painting, came out just as I finished the class. You bet I bought it. You can read about my trip to them Makerire there in this post.
This is the painting that was my neighbors. Flora had us give 1 of our 30″ x 30″ paintings to the person on our left. Wow, was that stressful. I had never experienced this in a class before. Even with all the shock I am glad she had us do this. It really pushed me out of my comfort zone.
I started adding some of my marks to the canvas. I had no idea of where this was going. AT ALL.
Still more mark making. Guess what, no idea where it was going. Shocking, I know.
I’ve seen a bird like thing in it. Outlined it and decided to add some leaves.
Adding colors around the bird to make it stand out more, fiddled with the leaves, but realized, oops. I don’t like the leaves too much.
Much happier with the bird with a neck injury now that I have blued in the body. Still don’t like the leaves.
For some reason, I kept trying to save the leaves, redeem them in my eyes. Not working….so obvious to me now but when I was painting it was not so clear…
Adding the white above the body I thought would help the bird be more defined. I am starting to see the red blobs at the bottom as red tulips. There were the most wonderful red tulips blooming all over Chautauqua.
At last I fave up on the ugly leaves and covered the entire bottom with red tulips- my favorite part of this painting.
The odd head has become the feathers on top of the head since that head was at a weird angle. More paint and colors around the bird to define it more. Not sure if this is a work in progress still or a finished piece. I’ll step away from it for a while.
I left my comfort zone many many times during the 2 days with Flora- and I LOVED IT! How have you been leaving your comfort zone lately?
If you have a moment stop by all the wonderful artists at Paint Party Friday!
ahhhh yes, the book is on my to read list! Too bad I live to far or I would follow a real life workshop too… she sounds so inspiring! Also, I love your painting.. or, at least now it’s your painting, LOL. So nice to see the progress… thank you so much for sharing it with us. 🙂
This looks way cool! 🙂 I bought Flora’s book but hadn’t had the chance to properly read it.
Carolyn, how freeing! I love the progress you made on the canvas. It is so educational to watch someone’s painting as it moves along. I think the finished one is indeed the best. You stopped at the right moment. Beautiful.
Great energy and colors! It’s really fun seeing the progression of this painting. I get stuck at the middle phase sometime, when the whole canvas is busy, busy, busy. I really enjoyed seeing you how you moved from that point to creating some definition and focal point in your composition.
How interesting. I love how your painting turned out. What a wonderful fun process. Happy PPF!
her online class was great too-I love flora and her ability to get us out of our fears!
have fun!!!
wow that must have been a wonderful experience attending one of Flora’s courses. Finishing off someone elses painting must be terrifying am not sure if I could do that, but loving your results. Happy PPF, Annette x
I love your tulips.
Rinda
Very nice work. Nice step by step process and loving the end results. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Delightful creation with color, design and texture ~ getting out of our comfort zone is scary ~ but look how you have blossomed! ~ thanks, namaste, ^_^
Love to see what you are doing. Thanks for the book recommend. So interesting to give your painting away to the left… makes you realize that things aren’t so precious and you can let them go. Excellent. Happy PPF
That’s just delightful to see how it all came together! Thanks for sharing!
Hello Carolyn, so great to follow through your different painting stages. You’ve had plenty of fun with this one and it shows, thanks so much for sharing with us, it’s a great piece and I love your red tulips at the bottom too, a gorgeous splash of red colour that brings the piece to life!
WOW. Amazing!!! Thank you so much (again!) for sharing the step-by-step photos. Love the tulips!!!
What an amazing post!!!I love seeing your process! Thanks for sharing! The green leaves
gave the bird piles of depth. Such an interesting process!! Good job!!
Hugs Giggles
I am so jealous, i would love to take a class with her, your painting is wonderful!
Oh my goodness…! I took her class and remember exactly how it felt… you did great!
Keep up the good work!
Happy PPF…
Renee
xoxo
http://www.fussitup.blogspot.com
So much gorgeous color! Love all these layers… thanks for sharing so many pics and the process. Sounds like you had a really wonderful and inspirational getaway.
This is so interesting, I love doing this style of painting. It’s very much what I’m doing a lot of right now. I’ve stepped away from oil painting still life’s etc., to doing more abstract. The letting go and being free to do just what comes up is so fun and exciting. Now I think that I’ll have to take a class with her, she sounds amazing. Thank you for this! Have fun creating!
Oooh, I would LOVE to go to the Makerie!!!!!! Now that I’ve seen the wonderful work you’ve produced there I want to go even more….gotta check out my airmiles…. Thanks so much for sharing your process. Have a great weekend!
that looks spectacular…. the whole intuitive thing freaks me out completely but I love what you have created so maybe I am coming around to it slowly… I love it…xx
The texture and free up energy are so obvious. Great work!
So much energy and movement hidden here! Valerie
I love seeing your painting process and the transformation as you go along. love where it’s at right now. Congrats
beautiful work and what a great idea she had…….. everything I do right now seems out of comfort zone…….
This is outstanding! The more I watch it the more lovly, and it gives a lot of colors, smiles and joy! 🙂
I like you show how you do it step by step! 🙂
What fun! Sounds like a great course and how fascinating to see your progress. Lovely!
OO I love this, so wild and free!
wow, congrats on stepping way out of your comfort zone …I have a HUGE problem doing that. And, sharing with us??? Thank you so much!
This is my kind of art!!! Lovely
Nicole/Beadwright
Come join us it is so much fun and great rewards in that mail box …… http://musingsonrealities.blogspot.com/2012/05/international-mixed-media-postcard-swap.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MusingsOnRealities+%28Musings+on+Realities%29
WOW, I love it when other artists share the steps of their process- thank you for doing this! I like the choices you made and the tulips are one of my favorite parts of this too!
She really did push you outside your comfort zone. Looks like a great class. It will be interesting to see how it affects your panting now.
This is Awesome!!! I love how you show the different steps! just a great post:))
Wow! What freedom and what a result…wow again!
xx
This looks so cool! So great to see all the steps, and how you developed it. I was thinking taking her online class, but had too many other things on at the time, and I wasn’t sure about the yoga thing (not a yoga person at all). But I was curious, and so I bought the book.
Thanks so much for sharing the good/bad/ugly of your process. I’ve read others who’ve taken Flora’s class and had that switch with your neighbor process. It always seems to be a bit traumatic, yet totally freeing! I like how you were able to let go, move on and ultimately find a part of the painting that spoke to you. What an inspirational post.
Holy Moly you are blowing me away this year! I wish I could take her class. Hopefully one day!
Ooh yeah, this is light shining straight from your soul. xox
OMG! That turned out so well! I love the bird! It’s amazing what you can do when you go out of your comfort zone. I haven’t done that yet. scary. Did I read that right?…the painting wasn’t yours to begin with. If so, that would be stressful! Thanks for sharing your process. Turned out fabulous!
Just beautiful Carolyn! How frightening to have to switch 🙂 The bird just pops off the canvas at me!
Very lovely painting! I love how you helped the bird to emerge and come to life. What I would love to see is the painting that YOU started and what the other person did with that. 🙂