“Art created through an intuitive process seems more raw and truthful than a work by me that is contrived through hard reasoning and pre-planning.  The thing I love about using my intuition to paint is that the ideas are constantly flowing through me like a high-pressure water pipe, and when the brushes come out, I have seemingly limitless possibilities ready to be tapped into.”

quote by Stuart Diamond from the book , Art from Intuition – Overcoming Your Fears and Obstacles to Making Art by Dean Nimmer

Lots of times I don’t necessarily agree with the quote of the day but I find them interesting and thought provoking.Sometimes the quote is as if I had written it  myself like the one I posted today.  I suppose I paint “intuitively” . I sketch , ALOT and that activity is DEFINITELY  intuitive. I think I lose some of that immediacy when I paint. Or, rather, my intuition comes and goes.  The beginning paintstrokes are beautiful, fresh, energetic , clean, and they come very easily. It’s the following layers  that start to  make me have questions about my  – uh- abilities as a painter ?!?  The possibilites are limitless, that’s for sure and I’m open to trying all of  them  on every painting. It starts to get a little messy , murky , overworked and I find myself wishing I’d stopped long before.. All of this is familiar territory for artists and I guess I am thankful for the  process and all of its ups and downs. Because, knowing that it indeed comes  out all right in the end, I can tell my students , when they’re frustrated, about my own experiences and encourage them to keep going , to try something new, to see the process through .  Part of teaching art , I now realize, is  teaching people to trust in their own intuition as they go forward in their creative process.