Four minutes in,
Let's get going.
Today is day three.
So on the first day we used a dry material.
And the second day,
To tell our story,
To add a chapter,
We added in that,
What I called it,
The crossover material.
Something that behaved,
Mine aren't in front of me so I can't show you,
Something that behaved like a dry material.
In other words,
We could draw with it,
But in truth it was,
It is more of a wet material.
So I had a pigment stick,
Which is oil paint in a kind of crayon form.
Y'all might have had ink tints or watercolor pencils,
Those sorts of things.
Today we go into chapter three of this story we are telling.
And we are going to use a fluid.
We come to those waterly,
No excuse me,
We'll go back to fluid,
We come to those fluid materials.
Now I'm going to ask you to use restraint.
If you are here as an artist,
As a creator,
Probably color is a wild passion of yours.
And I'm asking you to use restraint and only choose one.
Today we will choose just one color and do a wash.
That might be something you have to prepare.
So for me,
I'm using oil paint and I had to thin down my titanium white with linseed oil.
If that's the case for you as well,
Perhaps you need to get a watercolor wash together real quick.
One color,
It doesn't have to be white like mine,
One color that sings to you,
That your surface is going to respond to.
Get that prepared.
Acrylic,
Maybe you thin it down with some,
Well,
Water.
I'm trying to think,
How did I use to thin my acrylics?
Anyway,
Hopefully you get the idea.
And maybe you can just use the material and treat it like a wash in and of itself.
So that is the point.
That is the idea.
Now as you're well aware,
So far this week we have been doing these creative meditations with the intention of not only building a story,
One layer upon the other for five days,
But taking it slowly.
I explained on Monday that my propensity is to respond to intuition with quick hits.
And rather than take that angle this week,
I wanted to try out going slowly,
Concentrating on one simple step,
And taking it very methodically,
Very meditatively,
And let it really resonate.
And then in between,
Again,
As most of you are aware,
I ask you to spend 24 hours with this new chapter that's been added,
And let it speak back to you.
It'll tell you how to edit.
It will tell you how to add.
It'll tell you where to take off with that next chapter.
Now you would think that a wash is going to happen very quickly,
And it,
You know,
Very well might.
But my intention is to spend time with it,
To decide where it starts and where it ends.
What portion of this surface is going to have this wash of color over it?
So I'm starting to use not just my intuition as I add this chapter,
But the stories going on,
So I can pull in my intellect and my education and my experience in understanding how to continue this story going.
And you all can do the same.
We're going to pull in a wash,
But ask your,
That beautiful voice we try to put to sleep while we're painting intuitively,
Ask your intellect,
Ask your education,
Ask all that information you've absorbed,
Where best to begin,
How best to control it,
How best to let it flow.
Perhaps it'll be just a small portion of a wash.
Perhaps it'll be the entire surface.
That's all your own intuitive response to this assignment.
Perhaps you'll grab some paper towel,
A rag,
And let it be part of the wash story.
One color,
Two chapters.
Let's go.
Today's thought bubbles from Melody Beatty,
Beatty?
Beatty.
Seems applicable to the chapter I'm asking you to add to the exercise today.
Letting go of our ideas about how life should go is a choice that sets life's magic free.
Letting go of our ideas about how life should go is a choice that sets life's magic free.
Let's set some magic free,
Shall we?
Let's go for seven minutes again.
We did seven minutes yesterday,
And that might involve some contemplative time,
Some time studying the surface and letting it tell you where this wash comes in.
Or you may already know,
And you simply get after it,
And then if it's a rather brief expression,
Then you spend time with it until the beautiful chime happens,
Letting it tell you what it just,
How you just responded.
This morning I did some Qigong instead of yoga,
And I wanted to share one of the,
I call it a core Qigong exercise,
But I could be wrong about that.
I'm not a Qigong expert.
I follow somebody who is on YouTube,
And it's called pulling down the sky or maybe pulling down the heavens.
So if you can stand,
This is going to be part of our grounding and centering exercise before we get going on those seven minutes.
If you could stand,
Please do,
Otherwise sit,
But the most important thing is to ground yourself.
You can do that standing or sitting of course.
Feel the firm foundation,
And equally important,
The column of yourself.
Yes,
Your spine,
But even more than that,
The column of yourself,
Not only grounded,
But stretching high as well.
As I say probably too many times for some of you,
This is us,
The conduits between heaven and earth,
The connection points.
Close your eyes and see that.
Imagine that.
Your beingness as this connection between everything earthly and everything otherwise.
Not as an exclusion to every other earthly thing,
But as a recognition of the gift that you are,
The presence that you are.
Never deny yourself in order for something else to hold its place.
It's not what it's about.
Alright,
From this grounded and reaching place,
Hold your arms at your side,
Fingers spread wide,
And then out from each side of your body,
Stretch your arms up,
Tall overhead.
Stretch your neck and your eyes high as well,
Reaching with every sensory sense of yourself,
Envisioning those heavens above as your hands stretch to grasp,
And pull it down like rain along the front of your body.
Do that three times.
You're making basically a large circle with your arms,
Out to each side,
Up and overhead,
Grasping at the heavens,
And pulling it down.
When you've done the three,
Let your arms rest gently,
Comfortably at each side.
Make be,
Wiggle a bit.
I almost said jiggle,
But a lot of us do that without trying.
Wiggle a bit.
Feel not only the childlike silliness of a wiggle,
But also the settling,
Shaking into place of those heavens you just drew down into yourself.
Be brave.
Do a wash.
Trust what comes.
Don't fear losing a chapter.
Experiment with adding a new one atop it.
Seven minutes.
It's not ringing very loud,
But the alarm just went off.
I've decided to let gravity play now as well.
And it's intriguing.
Perhaps if your wash is fluid enough,
You'll want to do the same.
But I propped it up,
As you saw when we were still working,
But now even more so I'm propping it up and everything is starting to,
Of course,
Relax down the surface.
And those shapes I had from the first day of the charcoal and then the second day of the oil paint stick,
They're capturing,
Those edges of the charcoal are capturing the wash.
So it's creating new edges,
Unexpected.
I really like that.
Hopefully something like that is happening in your own work,
An unexpected something.
A wash can seem so simple and,
You know,
Expected.
You know what a wash is.
You know what flooding a surface with one color is going to beget.
But no,
No we don't.
It's different and it changes every time depending on the story that's happening underneath.
So,
I love surprises.
Actually,
I hate surprises.
But I like revelatory experiences.
Alright everybody,
That's it for today Wednesday.
Like I said,
Tomorrow we'll come into paint.
So if you're using watercolors today,
Then have your full palette of watercolors tomorrow.
Same thing.
Acrylics,
Full acrylics,
Oils,
Full oils.
Let's just look forward to it.
But remember,
Let the next 24 hours be a time of rumination.
A time of this work,
These chapters,
Speaking back to you and telling you how to edit and add the next chapter.
Don't automatically assume something from the very first read of it.
Let it sit with you.
Alright everybody,
Over and out.
Have a beautiful rest of your day and I will see everyone tomorrow.
Hopefully you can all make it.
Add that next chapter.
Have a beautiful day.
Thank you.
You you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you I just yeah I was just messaging you,
Oh I did,
I hit send.
Well,
You know,
It's all the same now.
Okay dude must not need me yeah right hanging out in the heat blazing sunshine needs me to pick them up
