Intuition in Art 1
I am at the beach, watching the sun rise today! It is 78 degrees November 1, which is a record breaker here. I have been reading a book titled "Composition" by David Friend. Excellent reading for any artist wanting to learn about this vast topic that is 90% of what GOOD art is, not GREAT art, but good art. Great art is accomplished with INTUITION. Part of art is being very sensitive to color notes, and/or value notes. Watching the sun rise, it was like looking at a giant orange, perfectly round, being created by spilled red- orange paint, reverse melting. The liquid was poured out into the ocean, like lava, and now was forming together to push up the sun against this dark gray blue background and darker ocean. Opposite hues on your color wheel, and on extremes on the value scale. As an artist, I wonder to myself " How could I paint that red-orange like that and make it POP! WHite, Cadmium? What? Well If you have never tried to paint the sunrise, I suggest you do this. Try to push your values....Hint, try cad yellow first, for a sunrise or sunset and see if you can make a sun pop out of the sky. This is the DRIVE that makes us continue to paint. It could be a sickness or disease, an obsession, or a gift, however you see it in yourself, but it is an incessant voice challenging us to paint what we think, see, feel. In his book "Composition" Friend says this: To be creative requires the determination to call upon intuitive faculties that we have with in us but rarely use:we must learn to use the DEPTH mind, as Dr. Ehrensweig calls it, or the RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN, as claimed by Dr. Bogen; learn to release unconscious, imaginative perception;learn to express inner feelings spontaneously;learn to organize these feelings in a composition, intuitively, on the two-dimension level;learn to release individual uniqueness. THey're all within you. ONLY when these faculties function, does a painting come ALIVE." Like the sun's poetic introduction to the day, our intuition needs to be introduced to our canvas. We get so caught up in producing what we see, or what we think we see, or what we imagine, but what about what is inside of us?Perhaps our souls; perhaps someone else's soul we are channeling. Intuition can be found in between your thoughts. Using meditation or silence, or just BE to find your intuition is a key to being that 100% great artist You were designed to be.
