Painting Intuitively by Lori Putnam OPAM

Have you ever attended a perfectly executed musical performance that still left you feeling disappointed or indifferent? The performer controlled every note, yet something deeper was missing. There was no musicality. I’m talking purely about the music, not about flashy effects and lasers. When a musician becomes an artist—even making an occasional mistake—the audience leaves with a deeper understanding of the music, the performer, and themselves. Visual artists experience this, too: a good painting requires your brain, but a great painting comes from your soul. 

There is no substitute for learning to draw, using proper values, mixing colors harmoniously, and so on. The academic and intellectual aspects of painting cannot be discounted, even a little. We say, “Your painting is only as good as its weakest part.” Furthermore, painting intuitively does not mean being sloppy. If you do not know how to draw a horse well, no amount of vague slapping, scraping, and dripping will disguise that. Sometimes, however, the pressure of painting that perfect piece for the most important show can literally suck the life out of my work. I paint twice as many pieces as I need for an exhibition, hoping a few will shine. Planning a painting, through thumbnail sketches, preliminary small studies, and the like, gets my creative juices flowing, but oftentimes, in the end, I run them down to the last drop and, unfortunately, keep going. Have you ever gotten to the end of a painting only to realize that you really love the small study much better? At one point, there was artistry; then, suddenly it is overworked, and the piece has, at best, become average again. This happens when we allow intellect (brain) to interrupt intuition (flow). Edouard Manet said, “It is not enough to know your craft; you have to have feeling.” Just sit in that for a minute and take it in. Putting feeling into your work means balancing what you know with who you are; it means being an artist.

Painting, like any skill, comes with knowledge and practice. No one ever learned to play world-class classical guitar in a weekend workshop. I am not talking about learning the rules of say composition or atmospheric perspective and so on. [While some rules can be scientifically proven, most are just someone else’s theory, and knowing how to break them is a favorite pastime for me.] What I am talking about is rolling up your sleeves and learning for yourself, the “what, why, and how” of it all. But here is the key. Eventually, you must trust the rigorous practice you have developed to paint with artistry. The more comfortable you become with yourself and your abilities, the more you can enjoy the flow of the paint, the feel of the brush, and the motion of your instincts. Some people may refer to it as “in the zone.” That happens, sure, but if intuition becomes habit rather than happenstance, viewers of your work will not leave your exhibition disappointed or indifferent. They will leave having felt what you felt as you created it. J.M.W. Turner said, “It is only when we are no longer fearful that we begin to create.” 

In addition to trusting your knowledge, there are other ways to encourage intuitive painting. First of all, play. Find what feels good and natural to you. Be aware and guard what influences you let in; too much noise leaves you confused. Chasing someone else’s flashy techniques only reveals imitation, not intuition, and shows you’ve traded curiosity for imitation. Technique shouts over substance, smothering real feeling. That is not intuition; it is blather. When did you “grow” afraid? Be brave enough to explore and experiment, but find your own path. Shake off the hunger for validation—the fleeting social media ‘likes’—when you’re searching for your truth. Approval-seeking chokes discovery. Real creativity flourishes in quiet, when no one’s watching. You don’t even need your own approval! Just be six years old again, skipping rocks, splashing in mud, not caring at all what anyone thinks.