Let's Do an Intuitive Painting!
A few years ago, I nearly always started a painting with smooshes of color. That ship has long since sailed, however lately it has sounded like a fun thing to do again! I decided to make a basic intuitive painting. If you want a gentle free flow way to paint, look no further than your intuition to be your guide. Here’s a very basic intuitive art process to enjoy! Give it a try the next time you don’t know what to paint!
Start out with smooshes of random color. I used watercolor however acrylics would work too. Let the first layer dry completely.
Turn the painting this way and that, and use your intuition. What do the colors or shapes remind you of? Trust your instincts! Then draw your preferred design onto the painting with pencil. Feel free to erase what doesn’t work, and redraw the lines until you are satisfied. Next, I traced the pencil with a black ultra fine tip sharpie. If you are using acrylics, you would skip that step.
My Beavis and Butthead style character emerged at this point! LOL! He slightly reminds me of Jay from Jay and Silent Bob. Either way…you could have drawn an animal, buildings, a landscape, a face…etc. Paint around the design with a darker color or two. I used watercolor and made the paint super saturated, to cover up some mistakes I made in the background.
Once that dries, go in with a marker or white acrylic paint marker and do some line work. Or feel free to add to your design in whatever way suits you in that moment! I went in at this stage and added a few more details to my character with black ultra fine tip sharpie.
And here he is! I’m calling him Melvin.
For more art making in this style, I highly recommend Alisa Burke courses! She has endless classes to try, and my art has been most influenced by her style…mainly because I’ve taken lots of her classes over the years. If you want more of a hippie floaty yoga-esque “Earthy Crunchy” intuitive painting experience, pop over to Flora Bowley’s website and give her classes or group a try!
