Illuminated Play

Creativity is a portal to play. The older I get, the less inhibitions I have about making a mess and finding the “gold” within it through creative process. Messing around (and finding out!) in art has helped me trust when things feel out of control in life. Something Always makes itself known and emerges from the messy abstraction! Better yet, what emerges is so often very beautiful.

I'm excited  to share with you one of my favorite ways to paint. We’ll start with a watery “mess,” watering the page and intuitively letting the ink fall and flow where it will. Then we’ll see where our subject might emerge from, and paint the shape around our reference with thin washes of either inks or watercolors. This begins the transformation of the abstraction into an illuminated being through playing with how the background and foreground harmonically inform each other. Edges soften, drips tell a story, and light shines through thin ink washes that are gently shaped into form. Then it’s all about mark making and feeling into who or what else wants to emerge from the page.

This process dances between surrender and control. Wild colors, inky artifacts, and just enough definition to know what or who you’re looking at! Let’s play!