Abstract Painting, Demystified - by Kristen Phillips

COURSE

Abstract Painting, Demystified

With Kristen Phillips

If abstract painting has ever moved you and left you wondering how anyone gets there, this is a way in. You'll spend time with Wassily Kandinsky, Mark Rothko, Agnes Martin, Hilma af Klint, and Sonia Delaunay, five painters who each built a visual language of their own. Each session pairs art history with a guided practice drawn from that painter's way of working. Because it's audio, you build the painting in your mind first, so there's nothing to copy, and whatever arrives, arrives from you. A sixth session brings it all together, so you can see what's becoming your own. No experience needed, and there's no wrong way to do this. By the end you'll have five practices to return to, and the beginning of a way of working that's yours. Music sourced from MusOpen and Wikimedia Commons.

VisualizationMusicEnergyCreativityMovementColor VisualizationArtistic ExpressionEmotional ExpressionSpiritualityColorSpiritual AwakeningCreative ProcessArt Inspired MeditationRhythmRepetitionCreative ExpressionRhythmic BreathingRepetition TechniqueArt TherapyImmersive

Meet your Teacher

Kristen Phillips
Bend, OR, USA

Kristen Phillips is an abstract painter based in Bend, Oregon, whose studio practice is grounded in art history and a fascination with how a painting comes to have meaning. Her own work moves between canvas and paper, built from the marks, shapes, and colors that return until they become a language of her own. She teaches from that perspective, joining fine art with contemplative methods to show that building a visual language is not a rare talent but an accessible way of paying attention.

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6 Days

162 students

4.8 stars

16 min / day

Authenticity

English

Lesson 1

Painting With Color And Feeling

Enter Kandinsky's world through a guided description and Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Build the painting in your imagination before anything touches the page, then respond with color and feeling. No experience needed.

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Lesson 2

Painting With Depth And Emotion

A guided description and Chopin's Nocturne in C minor take you into Rothko's atmospheric color fields. You'll practice letting color carry emotion, then put that response on the page. No prior painting experience required.

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Lesson 3

Finding Your Rhythm

In this lesson, you'll visit Agnes Martin's world of repetition where rhythm is more important than result. Enter through a guided description and Satie's Gnossienne No. 1, then let the hand settle until something unexpected begins to emerge from the field.

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Lesson 4

Letting Marks Arrive

A guided description and Debussy's Clair de Lune lead you into af Klint's territory. The practice is letting marks arrive without direction, following the hand before the mind decides what it's doing. This one surprises people.

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Lesson 5

Painting With Energy

Enter Delaunay's world of color and rhythm through a guided description and Mozart's Piano Sonata in G major. Then paint with energy as the only instruction: looser, more physical, and less concerned with getting it right.

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Lesson 6

Your Visual Language

Lay out everything you've made across the five sessions and look at it together for the first time. Guided questions help you see what keeps returning across the work. That pattern is your visual language beginning to emerge.

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4.8 (5)

Recent Reviews

Anne

October 31, 2025

Really enjoyed the art sessions and the music will be redoing them

M

October 27, 2025

Love this course! Thanks so much. Im going to re-listen to incorporate into my personal daily creative practice.

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