Obviously when I feel like that is exactly when I need to be finding things to be grateful for and noticing the abundance in my life the most, but sometimes, you know, just NO.

One thing you might think about taking a retreat from your own life and the usual people who populate it is that you would have heaps of time to waft about appreciating stuff.

That’s proving to be at least half true. I do have a lot of time. I spent maybe 98% of my time alone, most of that in silence {unless I’m watching Netflix}, and not having a nine to five means I can structure my days as I choose. I’m very rarely doing nothing at all but I’m working on that.

I know; dream, right? Well yes and no. It’s coming up for two months of living like this and I’m not gonna lie, a large percentage of those two months has been pretty hideous. Creating a space by removing everything that usually fills it means that everything is going to come up into that space for healing. Everything.

Memories you haven’t thought about in years, old wounds and heartbreaks, conditioning and programming that has been running your life without your conscious knowledge, patterns you don’t know how to begin to dissolve, behaviours you just can’t seem to stop, fear and grief, and let’s not even talk about how ex boyfriends suddenly start contacting you out of nowhere.

It’s intense, painful, frustrating, difficult, lonely, boring, seemingly relentlessly unchanging, and a whole bunch of other fun stuff.

HOWEVER.

This is in no way a complaint; I chose this. In a sense I was backed into a corner; the work I’d been doing with Tai Chi, Reiki, and consciously taking steps to becoming more of who I really am took me to a point where living as I always had suddenly became literally unbearable. Hence the time out.

It’s like Real Me stopped whispering and started shouting. So I kind of had to listen. I did choose this but I also couldn’t have carried on as things were without probably having some kind of breakdown. And now of course I can never go back. Not that I’d want to, but walking this path is a strange combination of desire and necessity and knowing there is No Other Way for you to live now. Even though you don’t know what is the way you’re going to live, who you’re going to be. There’s this big old space.

So yeah, getting a bit intense there. Another thing I’m finding on this trip is that words are becoming less and less useful to accurately describe things. It’s like they only stretch so far in their meanings and then there’s this gap before the full extent of their meanings becomes known and understood and experienced.

My point is, {yes, sorry, I forgot there was one for a moment there}, gratitude has not been my favourite tool while all this has been going on, despite knowing full well it is actually an awesome tool for bringing more of the good stuff into your life. Where the mind goes, energy flows.

And then something shifted.

It all feels very fragile and slippery, as if even talking about it might scare it away, but I feel it; something inside me has just moved. And although I’m well aware that appreciating the abundance of goodness in one’s life is much easier when one feels good already, I’m also finding a depth to each little thing that wasn’t there before.

So here is what’s good in a whole new way:

* Waking unexpectedly at 5am and going to the beach before anyone else. The quiet, the waves lapping, the blue sky; it was like being abroad on holiday and going down to the beach before the tourists get there.

* Treating myself to a hammock chair that hangs from a pole for my roof garden. I can curl up in it and swing and look at the sky and my plants and imagine anything I like. Which is mainly how I’m going to revamp the roof garden at the moment.

* Greek yoghurt with honey and blueberries. Cold and smooth and crunchy.

* My azalea plant that has busted out some serious magenta blooms; just a quick look gives me a happy.

* A bluetit that landed on the railing; tiny and quick and so perfectly blue and yellow. Birds don’t tend to land on the roof garden because I’m there so much. I gasped and clapped like a child.

* Leaving some extra baking I’d made on a friend’s doorstep and her genuine delight in receiving it without needing anything further from me {she understands I’m still on retreat. Doesn’t mean I can’t share though}.

* Meandering along the shoreline picking up treasures; a piece of sea glass, a heart stone, a glimmering shell.

* Just sitting.

All these little things, suddenly not just a list but genuinely rich moments, like a really good chocolate mousse that has depth to it.

I’m changing on the inside; there’s no point even trying to say how but it’s happening. Maybe I just needed to note this down to refer to in the event of a slip. I’ve made my peace with this retreat perhaps lasting many months more than I’d initially imagined, and maybe that’s allowed me to begin to relax into what is. There is a lot of letting go, a lot of acceptance, a lot of being present required. And at last, the continuous daily practise ~ the seed that seemed like it was never going to sprout ~ is starting to become a lived experience. So yeah, I’m grateful.

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Edit:

I just found this quote and it feels very appropriate ~

I don’t usually begin with so much pink enthusiasm, but something unexpected just happened. I finished a painting. {What the….} I’m very pleased because it’s been quite a while since I’ve a} finished a painting and b} done a process post. So yay on all counts.

As I mentioned the other day, I have a big old chunk of unfinished paintings hanging around in the studio, and I had some vague and ambitious notion to complete them all by the end of the year. As we come up to the midway part of the year I realise now that that was a hilarious moment of insanity, but I’m ok with that. {Aren’t they the best kind?!} You can see some of the piece that is underneath the painting I finished this morning.

I suppose you might say it was reworked, rather than finished, as pretty much none of the original remains. Since it was an experiment in colour and mark making I was happy to let it go and see what happened.

As you can see, the changes became more and more subtle as the painting went on. You can barely see what I did this morning because it was layer after layer of soft, pale glazes. I was quite glad I’d consolidated some ideas about how to finish a painting last week as I called on those ideas for this. In particular I went back and forth softening all the areas that were jarring to me {a benefit of having a long studio}.

Here it is hanging out with some buddies in the living room. Those colours make me die a little bit.

I’ll be putting it in the shop shortly. In the meantime, you can enjoy it here

In Flow by Tara Leaver

If you follow me on Instagram you may’ve seen some of these. Sorry about that.

This is a drawing from a photo of my friend Ames. Looks not one bit like her but I am happy for my reference images to be just that ~ reference. If I tied myself into accurate copying I’d go mad because quite frankly I can’t do it.

This is Kristen Scott Thomas’s eye. But you knew that because it’s such a good likeness. This was the joyful day that I discovered a new love: the blending stick. I can’t tell you why but I find it deeply satisfying to use.

Gesso over crayons. The bird was just to get a shape down so i could play with the mediums. {media?} I scratched the stars in with a screw; muy satisfying.

I love how making art while watching or listening to something can remind you of that thing every time you look at the art afterwards. This one was done while watching Hope Springs, which I don’t recommend really.

A quick charcoal on a watercolour background. I’m sure it should be illegal to be able to make something that pleases your eye in about ten minutes.

I drew this feather while on the beach {love it when i remember my pens down there}. I’ve made several more since. It’s very therapeutic, drawing on stones. I also like to hunt for the stones. You turn up all sorts of treasures.

I’ve included some of my paintings to illustrate different ways that a painting can tell you it’s finished.

Angels are Everywhere.
Sometimes paintings don’t need much before they’re finished. In fact, part of their finishedness is in looking kind of unfinished.

I watched the documentary ‘Gerhard Richter Painting’ recently. I found a lot of it kind of dry, but watching him paint was pretty interesting. After the first layer he leaves the paintings for an hour, a day, or longer before knowing if they’re finished or what more they need. You can see him in the film contemplating the paintings.

His assistants joke {at least I think they were joking ~ they were deadpan throughout so it was hard to tell and I don’t speak German so I didn’t always understand the nuances} that they can never be sure if a painting is finished; Richter may come back and do more, he may not. They have to wait and see. But the thing that struck me was when one of the assistants said, “After a while you just know”. This is exactly my process, only I hadn’t really articulated it or accepted it as a possible means of discovering whether a painting is finished. Of course someone else describing your method is always a great validation.

Here’s one that exactly illustrates that phrase:

What Was Invisible Begins To Be Revealed.
For ages I thought it wasn’t finished, and then suddenly I realised it was.

Carrie Schmitt, who paints beautiful flowers, carries her paintings around the house with her while she ponders what they may or may not need to be complete. I know of several artists who keep adding things until something just clicks inside them, and they feel it is finished.  Creating being such an emotional, right brain, intuitive visceral process, this makes total sense to me. Until you’re standing in front of a piece not getting any vibes. For some it’s a more practical case of ‘there’s nothing more I can add here’.

Grace.
One of the many joys of mixed media painting is that you can just add stuff and cover it over til you’re happy.

In the painting above the mixed media-ness of the painting means potentially you could go on adding things forever. I think this can be true of abstract work too. I find that just telling people a painting is finished is often like drawing a line under it. Even if I wasn’t really sure myself, no one has ever questioned me on it, and just the act of saying it’s complete is enough for it to become true.

Move.
This is a good example of a painting that pretty much painted itself and knew exactly when it was finished. I do kind of wish they were all like that but would we learn without being pushed by challenges?

It can be quite easy to get caught up in judgement about how long you’ve spent on a painting, or how easily it came together. I don’t know about you but I can get in a pickle if I start going down the road of ‘too quick and too easy means it’s not a good/finished/valid painting’. Nonsense of course. The painting above, possibly my favourite ever to date, was the perfect dance of spirit, brush, paint and canvas that we all dream of. It didn’t take weeks, I didn’t agonise over it, I was simply the vessel for it to come through, inspired by a Nia class. Sometimes it really is that simple.

Peacock.
One good way to know when a painting is finished is to make it OF something. Then when you’ve finished painting whatever the object is, it’s done. Boom.

I don’t often paint ‘things’, as in recognizable single subjects. This peacock came about pretty quickly though, and I knew it was done because all the elements were there and there was nothing more to do! Sometimes it’s that simple too.

One of the joys of art for me is that it’s not like maths; there’s no right or wrong, or final answer. There are probably as many different ways to know if paintings are finished as there are artists to paint them.

Holding Space.
A work in progress that sat for MONTHS unfinished and too confusing for me to even look at. Then one day, it turned into the painting on the right. Which I really love.

If you Google the topic, there are plenty of opinions out there. In fact the sheer number of words written about it shows just how much it is an issue for many artists.

If I was to to break it down, I’d say the following are some good ways that I’ve found useful to get to the point where you ‘just know’:

~ Turn the painting upside down or hold it up to a mirror. That’ll show you pretty quickly where any imbalances are.

~ Hang it in the living room so you see it every day in passing, or can contemplate it from time to time.

~ Have a conversation with it. Seriously. Ask it what it needs, what’s missing. Sometimes I feel a painting looks done but doesn’t feel like it’s saying anything. It feels a bit flat. If it wants to say something, how will you know if you don’t ask? It’s just a conversation with yourself, really.

~ If it feels unfinished but you don’t know what it needs, consider the possibility that it is actually finished.

~ Does the eye travel easily over and around the painting? Are any areas jarring, or less comfortable to look at? Do they need integrating?

~ Be patient. My least favourite, but probably the most effective. Time will always bring things to fruition.

Do you paint? How do YOU gauge when a painting is finished? I’m always interested in new approaches so please share your wisdom!

I’m not sure what I find so compelling about this little film; something about Beverley perhaps, the gentle and considered way she talks, her expressions, the sense that she is a deep thinking, soulful artist while still very grounded and straightforward. Some of the things she says make total sense to me beyond the words she uses.

I often find that hearing an artist speak about their work, or watching them in action, stirs the part of me that is the part of all of us, the creative spirit. It’s a recognition, that’s the best way I can describe it. {I feel I’m not quite using my words clearly today!}

Beverley talks about the dialogues she has with her paintings, the feeling of the work, and my favourite part of all, her observation that everything we create is a self portrait. Think about that for a minute! We are creating ourselves in every moment, with everything we do. It makes me think about the kind of self portrait I’m painting {each day and in general}, and I love these analogies that apply to art and life. I talk about that in my book; actually it’s one of the basic premises of it.

In her own words:

Stories are important to me… the ones we are immediately aware of and the ones that come through excavation.

Primarily a figurative painter, I like to work large scale and would describe my figures as being in a “state” rather than a “location”.

I think perhaps it’s this idea, the painting of a state of being, that I love. There’s a feeling in that that I would love to capture in my own work.

Beverley describes herself as a ‘maker of things’; she makes 3D art as well as paintings. The paintings are my favourite element of her work so I chose some of my favourites for this post; you can see a greater range of her work on her website.

I don’t always follow through with the things I sign up for. But I had an agenda free day yesterday, and was in what you might describe as a Soulful Mood. And I was curious. Being in retreat is bringing things up for me that I don’t always know what to do with, so I thought, what do I have to lose by trying this?

The journey, guided by Laura with videos and worksheets, takes you from setting an intention {using a brilliant intuitive method that neatly bypasses any logical thinking and most of the inner critic’s comments} to drawing around a part of your body, to asking specific questions once the painting is completed. I particularly love this method of grounding the process in your body.

As Laura points out, the body is the home of the spirit, and using it to express ourselves in this way brings higher insights and deeper understanding and clarity into our physical reality.

Below is the lifesize painting I produced. It’s hard to explain but I’m going to try because I think this is worth sharing.

Most importantly, this painting shows exactly why art is not always about creating something lovely that you can hang on the wall.

Sometimes it’s deeply intense and personal and about the process and/or the message{s} it holds for you alone as its creator. When I look at this painting I look at it with different eyes than almost all the rest of my work. I don’t judge it or assess it in terms of aesthetics or composition or whether it’s ‘good’ or not. It’s far beyond that.

It is actually deeply vulnerable-making to share this, like showing my insides. Fear not, I won’t take you through the whole process! Suffice to say, in asking the painting questions about the messages it had for me regarding the intention I had set at the beginning, I learned some things that although not news to me, introduced a level of clarity and confirmation that crystallized some important things I’m learning right now.

Massive side order of vague, anyone?

Basically I looked at each area, the colours and shapes and symbolism used, and saw how it was a reflection of my current situation and feelings. For example, the strange symbols on the left are about the language I am learning that I don’t yet recognise, and the fact that they are on the left, the yin/feminine/intuitive side, tells me that they are indicative of my own unique inner language of Self, which is one of many things I’m learning on this retreat.

I find the painting uncomfortable to look at, which is interesting in itself. I had hoped for something more serene looking! Clearly I’m not quite at that stage yet. Because the painting is so large {four A2 pieces of paper taped together}, I painted it on the floor, and it became a full body experience of moving around, crouching down, stepping back, like a dance. I painted a lot of it with my hands. I noticed all the criticisms that came up and kept going, reminding myself that this wasn’t like my usual work and ‘didn’t matter’; it was an experiment with no desired or planned outcome. No one would ever even need to know.

This painting is a conversation I had with mySelf.

There were also videos throughout the day where Laura gathered creatives of many kinds to share and discuss aspects of making soul art; there were some real nuggets, some of which I picked out to share with you and for my own future reference.

“Creativity is life force energy, so whatever is moving in our life, that is the creative flow; and if we’re feeling angry or dark or vulnerable or blissful or whatever the emotion is, it’s not saying one is good or bad, it’s just that is the flow of life at that time. And when we let that move through us we are in the creative zone.” Laura Hollick

There was a great discussion of the Ugly Phase and a great feeling of camaraderie as everyone acknowledged it as a regular part of their creative experience.

“What would I do if I didn’t care about what anybody thinks about this work?” Amadea Bailey {Great question if you really let go into it!}

Another good question was ‘how can I let go more?’

Soul Art doesn’t have to be huge; it could be done in a sketchbook. I can see myself using this method again when I need to learn things my brain cannot tell me. Asking through the medium of the body produces profound insights, and the very specific satisfaction and comfort that comes from learning your own truths from inside yourself.

To see the creations of other Soul Art Day participants, visit the gallery. 

Laura’s creative journey process surprised me with how much value there was in doing it. There is a lot of stuff out there that you can sign up for that doesn’t really have any effect; this was one of a few times where I found a depth and quality of experience that was really valuable to me. Sometimes signing up for everything in sight pays off.

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PS. My box of freshly printed books has arrived! If you have ordered one a} thank you very much! and b} it will be winging its way to you shortly.

PPS. There is still time to enter the book giveaway over at Do What You Love. I am overwhelmed by the quantity of responses so far and deeply moved by many of the comments. I wish I could give a book to everyone.

Beth asked me some great questions, and I tried to be as honest and transparent and clear as possible. It feels strangely exposing, being interviewed, but it’s very exciting and Beth has made it look fantastic. I’m so pleased to be at a point in my life where I can share my experiences, in the hope that they will encourage and inspire others.

If you missed the giveaway here last week, you have another opportunity to win a copy of the book over at Do What you Love. It closes on Saturday.

Today, my studio, one of the top three reasons for buying this flat {the other two being proximity to, and view of, the sea, and the roof terrace}. It occupies a floor on its own, which means that not only is it lovely and large, but also I get stairs. I love stairs. Additional bonuses include keeping the art mess contained {mostly}, having a place to go to ‘work’ with a very short commute, and it has a tiny view of the sea down the road. I’ve also discovered with the recent hot weather that it’s super cosy on summer evenings.

Here it is as the former owner had it. Very full of storage and no paint mess {I just don’t get it; how does paint NOT get flung about?}.

On moving in day, all nice and empty and clean…

The little doors are very useful storage  in the eaves. Tall people will need to stick to the centre area of the room. Even I, shortarse that I am, have bumped my head numerous times on those sloping walls.

Porthole alert! And butler’s sink. With a tap that comes out of itself and makes a hose.

And here it is with all my art shiz in it.

Open shelving is awesome apart from when you want to make pretty photos. The thing is I just don’t think artist’s studios are supposed to be tidy. For one thing, creativity is not neat. And for another, tidying a studio is a good way to get back in the flow if things have got a bit sticky. Sometimes I just like to be around my art things.

I really like the pin board the previous owner left; good for rotating inspirational images. I use the desk area on the right as the ‘library’; all my art books and reference files live there, along with the cutting mat and storage boxes underneath {inexplicably empty still}.

I hung paintings all the way up the stairs which brightens things up and is handy storage. When I come out of this retreat and start the Creative Spark Sessions again I’m hoping they will also provide inspiration and encouragement to visitors as they come up the stairs.

Some little vignettes.

Who can resist pots of paintbrushes?

I love to pretend this view is Parisian rooftops.

There she is.

Boom. Done. Hope you enjoyed the tour.

A place where I am not making art at the moment

Rachel Andrews! 

Yay! Rachel please send me your address and I’ll be sending you your copy as soon as the shipment arrives.

Thank you hugely to everyone who helped spread the word. If you’re at all bummed to not be Rachel Andrews at this moment, you will be pleased to learn that there will be another opportunity to win a copy over at Do What You Love on Thursday. {Don’t worry, I’ll remind you.}

In honour of this exciting and strange and frankly quite scary moment in my life, I’d like to give away a free copy of the book to someone lovely.

All I ask is that you help me to spread the word about my little art and life manual to your peeps, especially those you think might benefit from a creative nudge. If you use Facebook, Twitter, or have a blog or newsletter, or can think of any other ways to get the word out, please share the link and then leave a comment here.

I’m not going to check or ask you to tell me how you’ve done it; as you probably know I’m not too keen on the whole ‘earn it and prove yourself’ method of entering giveaways. Besides the idea is to get this baby far and wide, not limit its journey by making annoying and restrictive rules.

Entries will close on Monday 6th May.

Thank you so so much from the bottom of my heart for all the support and encouragement you have sent my way up to this point. In particular to dear Pauline, without whom this book would NOT be so pretty or so beautifully laid out inside. Fact. I cannot recommend her highly enough if you are thinking of writing a book yourself.

And also to you for reading, for taking the time to come by and say nice things.

Let’s get this show on the road!