Painting the Wave of the Underbelly

Post Date October 26, 2009

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Author ghav1

Category Uncategorized

How I Paint

by Denny

The painting begins as an urge in me, an urge that sends me to the store to buy a canvas. When I get to the store I walk all of the canvasses….waiting for a feeling. That feeling speaks to me and I find the right size canvas. Square or tall I take the one my new painting wants. I then walk by the acrylic paint display and only if a color jumps out at me do I put it in my basket otherwise I rely on my supply of colors in my studio.

When I get home I put the canvas on my easel. Sometimes it sits there for a few hours or a few days.

I can see it from anywhere in the main living area of my house as my art studio is where my dining room used to be.

Sitting on my couch reading or watching TV I can see it. At some point within a day or two that urge inside of me makes me stand up and walk over to the canvas. I grab a tub of paint, whatever color feels right. And usually without a brush I start painting the canvas with large sweeps strait from the tube onto the canvas. The canvas holds large chunky sweeps of color. Sometimes I spread it with a palette knife.

As I paint I say out loud express…express.

Three sweeps of paint or ten sweeps of paint I always know when I am finished. I walk away.

The paint sits on the canvas as I look at it, feel it, ponder it.

I wait for a few hours hours, or maybe a few days.

The next time I go to the canvas I am instigated by a feeling, a feeling that comes from my own growth process. The process that helps moves me along on my journey. The journey of knowing myself better, the journey I call my soul work.

I may be in touch with old grief or old hurt. I take the next chosen paint and smear it with my fingers on the canvas. The pain in my body feels better. The paint is like a salve, it heals my wounds.

I walk away.

I keep looking at the canvas which is now a painting.

I go to bed.

I wake up in the middle of the night and sit up. The word ‘yellow’ is loud in my head. I get up and apply yellow to the painting.

I go back to bed.

I live with the painting everyday as I go about living my life.

I look at it out of the corner of my eye as I make coffee in the morning.

The layers of paint dry between each application. The painting starts to come alive. It is in me, it is part of me.

One day I feel anger in my belly as I paint. The paint goes on with a splat!

That evening from the couch I look at the painting and all of a sudden I see something I hadn’t seen before; a face, a figure or a scene. I get up and accentuate what I have seen. The painting is having so much meaning at this point. This is when the title starts coming to me. I count on my intuition to get it right.

As the title keeps trying to come through I say. ….”that feels right”.

The painting may be finished at this point or may take a few more days. If I add more paint I say to myself with each application…”that feels right”.

I step away. It is finished. It is birthed, the creation is complete. I feel relieved and excited.