Dear readers,
Daily Painting: Watching the painting Unfold Nederlands
Today I worked again on a small painting of 6×6”. Same recipe as the previous blog posts.
At the moment I ‘think a lot’ about making art as a ‘spiritual practice’. Spiritual exercise, if you will.
Actually, that’s a wrong expression. It suggests that you need to practice a lot before you become a ‘spiritual person’, or to ‘spiritually develop yourself’.
In fact, painting allows you to perceive. Using your senses, being in the here and now. Not thinking about the painting, but simply seeing what happens, waiting for what the painting has to say to you.
In Flemish you have Guido Gezelle’s poem: ‘De blomme spreekt mij een tale’. (Translation: ‘The flower speaks in language to me (or: The flower tells me a tale’). He doesn’t think about the flower, he lets the flower speak to him. He listens.
You could ‘think’ about the painting in exactly the same way: ‘The painting tells me a tale’’. What does the painting say? Do you really listen? And what answer do you give?
The beautiful thing is that the painting does not speak in words. It speaks in visual elements: lines, scribbles, color, value, shapes, texture, depth. If you try to understand the painting, you cannot answer in words. You only have your paint and your crayon and markers, and whatever you use.
This invites you to go out of your head, into perception, into awareness, into Being.
And that’s why painting is such a beautiful ‘spiritual exercise’. You are training yourself to get out of your head, to really perceive with your heart (and not with your mind), and to answer from your depth, from your true self.
Here you will find today’s painting (and some details below).
And here some details:
PS: I only worked with my fingers, only two colors of paint (turquoise and quinacridone nickel azo gold, plus black and white), crayons and markers. Hardly anything to clean up. I LOVE that! Makes it even easier to make art a ‘spiritual practice’.
Bye! Have a wonderful day, full of listening 😉
I am resting in the softnesses here.
Rest well ;-)!