What holds you back from creativity?

The pandemic hit the whole world a few years ago and everyone has their own unique memories. One of mine is the path to watercolor. I picked up a brush and looked for suitable tutorials. I got lucky and discovered Jenna Rainey’s channel. She charmed me with her attitude and positive energy as well as her art.

Today I know that pure watercolor is not my path. Still, I follow Jenna and read her wise insights about art, business, and life. Today, her Creative Recovery course started. I had no special expectations, maybe just to get a little inspiration from the outside.

In no way did I expect the force with which the short audio and related task hit me. What holds me back from full creativity? What are the obstacles deep in the subconscious that hold back my creativity? Sounds like therapy, right?

I was surprised how quickly the old myth jumped out of my subconscious. The myth that you are either intelligent or an artist, intelligent or beautiful. Even as a small child I voted for intelligence and left art and beauty to others. Who told me that this is a choice?

My own pride seems to be a much bigger obstacle than the fear of imperfection.

Although in real life I had abandoned the holy grail of intelligence many years ago, it still controlled my subconscious. I was shocked to discover that being an artist meant to my subconscious mind the same thing as selling intelligence below cost.

So I am grateful for today’s lesson for this insight and guidance.. I am looking forward to the next few days of the course. Thanks, Jenna!

Love, Ivana

Painting forest

I love walking forest, I love watching little changes every day. Changes that are proof of life. Nobody says which ones are good or bad, everything is natural and alive. Walking forest means a kind of therapy for me, therapy of freedom or therapy by freedom.

What would a professional therapist say about the fact that I like to bring a trophy from a walk? I don’t care, but I do so. A small leaf of interesting shape or color is enough, I can use it later as a reference for painting. Actually I prefer trophies that I can use in some way. Trophies like leafs, bark, herbs, fruits, mushrooms, etc. Why to waste all the treasures?

Painting forest is a part of my personal art challenge for this year, see above. Probably not enough for me, so I joined another challenge in early March. It came to me in response how to improve my watercolor. Paint the same topic every day for a long period of time! Do not spend much time over it, do it as quickly as possible. You will gradually relax and your own style should appear. Yes. I want that!

After a month, I am still at the starting line. I painted without reference picture for the first 5 days and it was a disaster! I hope those scary pictures are not the only image of my mind. Having reference photo is much easier, I have something to lean back and focus on painting.

Do you have a favorite?

At the moment, I would like to apologize to all excellent authors, whose photos I devaluated with my quick painting. I promise not to exhibit them! They are quietly hidden in my sketchbook, thin sheets buckled because I didn’t use watercolor paper for this exercise. I hope to improve next month!

Hugs and love,

Ivana

Painting landscape

I have never wished to paint landscapes and I probably can’t even appreciate a well-painted landscape. I love being in the landscape and perceiving it with all my senses. Smell its scent, feel the sun’s rays or raindrops on my skin, hear the birds singing, touch the bark of the trees, taste the herbs or berries along the way. Eyes are only a part of the whole experience.

But then there is my artistic challenge and one of its topics is painting landscape.

When I tried to paint what I know from my surroundings – like the surface of a pond with several trees in background, it became a disaster. Perhaps because I painted at night under artificial light, without any reference picture. And it was the first time I tried to paint water surface. You really don’t want to see it 🙂

I felt much better after painting the ocean on the shore, even though I live hundreds of miles from the sea. But youtube knows everything! One of my favorite artist teacher Jenna Rainey just posted appropriate tutorial there, so I did what I watched. And you know what? I spent about a quarter of the time with a better result. It is worth to learn from someone who knows what he or she is doing.

According to the tutorial of Jenna.

Yesterday’s attempt to paint the landscape was a compromise between the two approaches. I used a reference picture of the landscape and did it my way. I am quite satisfied, so I can jump to the next topic of my artistic challenge. Hope you like it too 🙂

Love and hugs,

Ivana