Reflecting on BIG

Yesterday I finished my last painting for BIG, my online class with Connie. She's up there...she's 56X88"..the largest painting I have ever done in my life. It's so funny because here she doesn't look that big. My painting, if you are curious is about what BIG means to me now after finishing the workshop. Its about magic. Its about curiosity. Its about capturing a moment of inspiration. Its about confidence and clarity.

When I finished I signed my initials and I cried. For the soul purpose of being so incredibly proud of my new found Fearlessness as a painter.

BIG has a way of working itself into your soul.

I started out thinking that I was going to learn to push myself to paint large. Well, larger than I was painting. I had taken Connie's class Abstract Adventures thru 21 Secrets that had unlocked my ability to paint bigger than I had for a long time. Years ago I had painted large...and found it so freeing. But as a mother with two kids, well, certain things slip. Canvas and paper got smaller and smaller until I found myself hunched over at the largest 11X16.

Abstract adventures with Connie opened me back up to painting standing up, getting larger...and creating in an art journal that was 18X24 instead of the smaller one I was using. By the time I signed up for BIG I had developed an almost daily painting practice and I was inspired, but looking for more.

Enter BIG. I read about it on Connie's blog and was intrigued. I was scared too because I knew that I found this for a reason. I was supposed to do it. So many questions: Where was I going to do this? How big really WAS that paper? How much paint was I going to need? What the hell was I going to paint?

But those questions gave way to excitement. Each week when it turned Sunday I logged in to the online network and felt so calm. There was no pressure to be perfect. There was no pressure to paint a certain way. It was only about me and the paint. I soon found myself asking my paintings what they needed. What colors was it calling for? What was happening in front of me was so magical....and soon I found myself gathering more and more confidence.

If you read this blog..well, you know I am not hefty in the confidence department. But I now have confidence as a painter. I am FEARLESS as Connie says. One of my biggest fears was sharing my work. Connie taught me that it is OK to create art that is mine. No one else has to "approve" of it...its not really about the painting...its so much about the process.

Listening to yourself. Learning from your painting. Letting Go. They are now my 3 L's.

Listen. Learn. Let go. How about that....I've got myself a philosophy!

Before I started BIG I spent so much time giving to my students...teaching them about the process of art and making it their own...that I was forgetting about that myself. I would sit and ask myself "what are we creating today" and if it wasn't going as planned...well, it wasn't going. Now I find myself asking my painting to speak to me...asking my creative source/inner guide/creative spirit to come out and play.

I am FEARLESS.

Connie is starting a new workshop soon...if you are even thinking about it...DO IT.

Its not about the painting...its about YOU. Do it for YOU. You deserve to be BIG!!!

Oh and by the way...my craziness of the past few days...all resolved itself once that painting was finished. Seems I was going thru a metamorphosis of my own...and having "growing pains". Painting is SO powerful!