Your Light, Your Art
Your light, your art
Follow your True North Star
I believe it’s important to understand and accept that the art you love as a viewer may be quite different from the art that YOU are meant to create... When you see art you love from another artist, you are receiving their light, and when others see your art, it’s YOUR light they need to see.
So when I decided to teach art online last year and create Layers of Light, one thing was very clear to me. In fact it's one of the things that had kept me from teaching for a long time: I wanted to inspire others to follow their light, to find or strengthen THEIR voices as artists. And I didn't know if I would be able to guide my students in this way. How to do that on video through a stepped-out project, yet encourage students to do it in their own way? How to share every little detail of my own process, yet gently guide others to find their own?
(all the student art featured here comes from the same art project that I shared in my free workshop last week, some are works in progress, others are complete... I love the diversity of expressions that have been born from this lesson!)
FROM SOFT AND DREAMY...
The answer, thankfully, came pretty intuitively while creating the class and really designing Layers of Light as a journey of discovery. Knowing myself, knowing what inspires me and what doesn't, approaching my process more mindfully, has allowed me to understand where my own artistic voice comes from. My favorite colors, textures, techniques, tools, symbols, images, places, stories... all of it adds up to a "mix", an emotional vibe that is completely unique to me, and this spirit of joyful exploration has become the foundation of the way I like to teach!
One of the things I love, before diving into an actual tutorial, is to lead my students through some fun "inspiration prompts" that will spark ideas and help them look at their world with fresh eyes. This way, when they come to the canvas, they are already well on their way, each on a completely unique path.
...TO BOLD AND WARM!
Then when I teach the art project itself, of course you’ll see me create a piece from start to finish, but I always try to share not only the way I do things, but also a little bit (or sometimes a lot!) of the emotional journey behind it: what inspires me in the moment, how the process makes me feel, the happy accidents as well as the struggles... and in turn it inspires my students to pay attention to what is happening throughout their own art-making experience, learn about themselves and follow their own light.
And once you start creating from that place of truth within yourself, you’re never going to try imitating someone else again! Of course, learn about other artists' processes and how they navigate their own journey. Learn how to use the techniques that really attract you, learn to be daring and experiment, and when you see art you love, find out what it is that you love about it. Find out what emotion it stirs in you, then find your own ways of expressing that emotion.
Allow yourself to be inspired by what you love, use it as a starting point, and then have full trust that even though the results may not be what you had in "mind", they will be a true expression of what lives in your soul... To me that's what art is all about
To learn with me, explore your light in new ways through delicious projects and techniques, and create unique, meaningful art, join me in Layers of Light!
Registration just started and will be open only for a few days (seats are filling fast!) The workshop is self-paced with lifetime access and starts on Nov. 1st