So my BIG, Fearless painting class with Connie over at Dirty Footprints Studio is officially over even though my final project remains half finished on my easel.  It will get done but right now dealing with the passing of my father-in-law has taken priority for a couple weeks. 

What can I say about BIG.  I can say it is hard, really hard but like anything new in our lives it is so, so, so worth the effort.  I learned that there are so many ways that my mind disquises fear and how to recognize them and push on despite them.  I learned that if my intuition says start painting a mermaid don't fight it for a week just paint the darn thing because that is what you are going to paint in the end anyway.  I learned to reach for the bright colors I normally would ignore.  I learned that the cat will indeed walk across the wet paint on my artwork creating his own work of art across the hardwood floor. 

What I just can't really express is how BIG changed me inside.  I can feel the change, I know it has happen but it is so hard to express exactly what changed.  It feels like all of me is bigger.  Even outside my painting practice I have been playing big.  I jumped backwards off the zipline platform over 100 feet in the air, I applied for the promotion I don't think I have any chance of getting because my intuition told me I would regret not applying and I told a friend who had really hurt me months ago that I was angry with them because I no longer wanted to hold it inside.  These are just a few of the life changes I experienced.

The artwork I created during this course is certainly not remarkable, except perhaps for the size of some it  but then again BIG isn't about the artwork, it is about the process and that is one thing Connie told us right from the start.  So if anyone out there is looking to expand their horzions, learn to listen to their intuition and trust their creative source I would highly recommend you go visit Connie over here. 

Below is my last fully finished project from BIG, the final one is still in the works, this is the mermaid that had to fight me for a week in order to get painted.  In case it isn't obvious from the picture this is over six feet tall.

As part of our exercises for week 4 of painting Big with Connie over at the Dirty Footprints Studio, one of our tasks was to do a 20 to 30 minute art journal page each morning.  These didn't have to be big, it was more about the practice of just letting things flow and getting all the junk out.  I have to admit a trip out of town to my parents did interfere with this a bit on my end.  I only got pages done on five out of the seven days but it was fun and a great discipline.  Below are the four pages I actually did.  Mostly they are done with oil pastels except for the mandala which is done with copic markers.

Yesterday I hated her.  She was ugly and she was driving me nuts.  This morning I decided I was going to ignore her and maybe look at her later this afternoon.  But she called out to me softly and helped me finish.  She was going to be sad and shedding a tear but she told me that wasn't what she wanted.  She looks peaceful and content to me and in the end...I love her.

So we come to the end of week three in our BIG Fearless Painting journey.  It hasn't been easy and really hasn't even been that fun, what it has been is a BIG push out beyond my own boundaries.  And so far the journey has been well worth it.

This is my week two project for Connie Hozvicka's "BIG" painting class over at the Dirty Footprints Studio and what led up to it and creating it really was an amazing experience.  I started meditating about three months ago.  I mostly use guided meditation because I find it very hard to shut my mind down so guided meditations are great because they involve my mind but in a directed way.  I have to say mediation has changed my life and I would recommend it to anyone.

So this week I decided to try a new meditation practice called "sohum".  Basically as you inhale you say so and as you exhale you say hum.  Very simple...amazing results.  The very first time I tried this form of mediation I had a vision, maybe not really a vision but I simply don't know what else to call it.  I saw plain as day a frame with a single large eye in the bottom of it.  This was actually at the very beginning of my mediation and when I least expected to have any such experience, but I think that is always the way, we never experience it when we expect to.  Anyway, once I finished meditating and had time to reflect on the image I saw I realized it was a sign to me that I need to be open to and follow my intuition.  I am quite intuitive but at the same time very analytical (not sure exactly how that happened but anyway...) so I can talk myself out of a lot.  But lately I have been actively trying to grow my intuition and not question or stifle it.  So I decided the memory I wanted to paint was this because I never, ever want to forget that vision or its message.

So the painting below is what came out of it.  It is ugly and messy and it flowed out of me like nothing I have ever painted before.  There wasn't a moment of hesitation and the second it was done I knew it.  I think this will be a great reminder for the weeks, months and maybe even years to come to trust myself.  It was a very powerful moment for me.

Today marks the start of "BIG" over at Dirty Footprints Studio.   I am so excited, almost too excited I am afraid.  You see I have this idea that this course is going to change my life, not just my artistic life but my real life as well.  I am not sure I can even explain why I feel this way but I do.  What makes me a little afraid is that when I usually come into something with such high expectations I am almost always disappointed, but I am not going to worry about that now.  I am just going to paint big and fearless and let this journey take me where it will.  No worry, no doubt, just letting the paint flow.  

Below is a fearless painting that I did last weekend.  I had painted the background over a month ago when I was playing with the new fiber paste I had bought but I had no idea what I wanted to do on top of it.  Last weekend I decided to paint a face.  I had done quite a few faces but never have I just picked up my brush and painted one.  I always draw them out first so I can make them pretty, but this time I just picked up the brush and went with it.  She isn't perfect, here face is lopsided (my husband nicely suggested perhaps she has the mumps) and the texture I had been playing around with underneath kind of looks like acne.  I was tempted to try to "fix" her, paint more hair over the lopsided part of her face but the more I looked at her the more she told me that just like all of us she is perfect just the way she is.  She doesn't need to conform to conventional ideas of beauty.  So I didn't fix her instead I gave her the name, she is Sandy.  I don't know why that is her name but it is.