LB2015 : Be here now and Brave intuitive painting.

The 2 paintings I'm sharing in this post are the result of combining a couple of Life Book lessons. I watched both video lessons when I was full of a cold recently and only up to absorbing ideas rather than producing art. It is very inspiring to watch their process and I am so happy that you can save Life Book lessons (including the videos) so I'll be able to watch these over and over into next year and beyond. 
Alena Hennessy had a bonus lesson called "Be here now" - it was about being in the moment, and painting quick 15, 10 and 5 minute paintings.
Flora Bowley had a main lesson called "Brave intuitive painting. Letting go :: letting in". It was about having fun with mark making,  letting go of pieces of your painting, covering up areas you don't love to allow new colours/marks/new directions, and being open to where the painting will take you. I also got Flora's book out of the library again to reinforce different types of mark making. It is such a great source of prompts to loosen up what you might do on a painting.
So with all that in my head, I started to create 2 pieces side by side within 15 minutes.

You can see some cross-over in using the same paint, but I tried to keep my mark making different. 

Turning your page upside down during the process can help spark new ideas

Above is what I got to after about 15-20 minutes. I really liked how the right side was developing, and while the "Flow" painting is okay, I wanted to use Flora's techniques to see how much further I could push it and turn it into something I love. I started to try and cover up some areas

Not really feeling it, but I know it will happen...I hadn't managed to be inspired to do anything on the other painting, and I knew it needed something happen in that turquoise centre. I thought about my favourite technniques, and suddenly it was obvious what I should do. 

I sprayed through my stencil on the right, and then picked it up and printed with the remaining ink on the painting on the left. This action completely inspired me, so once the ink was dry I layered up without a thought to take process photos ;-)

Love adding found words to my art. You can see them better by clicking on the photos.

I ♥ them both. 

What a difference when you compare the 15 minute exercise above with the finished paintings below.

This is part of the reason I love taking photos as I go and capturing the whole process on my blog. You can see all my posts about Life Book HERE and I've created a Flickr album for all my Life Book projects HERE