Tag Archives: painting

Bricolage. A fancy name for

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making do.

With bricolage, you play with the materials at hand, even if they are old soggy paint-logged facial tissues.

‘These magical acts of creation are analogous to pulling a large amount of rabbit from a small amount of hat.’ 

says Stephen Nachmanovitch in ‘Free Play – the Power of Improvisation in  Life and the Arts’. *

bricolage tissue watercolour painting

Dabflowers
Sally Swain © original art
picture made from other people’s leftover paint tissues, plus glue, watercolour, pen.
Quite 3 dimensional. Coiled tissue pirals in the centre.

Remember a couple of

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What was Lost has been Found

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Read all about it below

and let’s complete our celebration of One Year of Blogging in the month-of-May

But first…

Can you be lost and found at the same time?

Sure.

Here’s my paintage (painting + collage)

Lost and Found in the Forest.

Sally Swain Forest art painting collage

Lost and Found in the Forest
Sally Swain © original art

And here’s the story behind the picture.

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Oh Bowie Oh

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Space Odditea.

That’s what I called my 2013 exhibition at

Beyond the Ordinary Teahouse. Surprise surprise – lots of teacups.

Would you like to see the painting I called ‘Space Odditea’? It’s never before been seen by non-Sally eyes.
If not now, when?

Space Odditea Sally Swain © original art

Space Odditea
Sally Swain © original art

I thought it wasn’t

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Red Girl Paves the Way

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Art and Soulie Spot #3

stories from the creative path

Friends, creators, Art and Soulies, you have Sarah Gibson’s Red Girl to thank for the existence of one-on-one Creativity Coaching sessions.

The amazing Sarah came to one of my groups back in 1998. Her partner had recently died. She kept asking if I would sit with her while she painted. I wasn’t sure. I’d been running groups for several years, but was unconfident, shaky, shy and couldn’t

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How to Access Your (Already Abundant) Creativity 5

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A Flower Power Point Presentation

to be viewed one blossom at a time

Part Five:

It Takes Two to Tango

Tango is a passionate, red and black dance. Tango is dramatic, with flair and flourish. It involves two people subtly, finely attuning to each other’s every move.

Sally Swain art

The Sauce of Life
Sally Swain © original art

Creativity can be a

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What do you wish to create?

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Once in a blue moon…

Once in a Blue Moon Sally Swain painting

‘Once in a…’    I just happened to have previously created this blue moon (with leopard?!) paintage and couldn’t resist sharing it with you today. 
Sally Swain © original art

Friday 31st July is a blue moon night. In case you’re unsure of the conventional definition, a blue moon is

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A Spiral Lets Itself in and Makes Itself Right at Home

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Creative Love Exchange Revisited

I’ve joined the wondrous global Art Therapy + Happiness community.

My first task:

Create an Introduction Wheel, featuring the four Cs in four quadrants. The four Cs? Courage, Compassion, Connection, Contribution. Right up my alley.

The four Cs mean a lot to me. I spend days pondering how I might portray them. I itch to get to my art-making. Finally!

I carve out time and space. I ignore my list of Tasks-To-Do-Now-Or-Your-Life-Will-Topple-Over.  I am at play.

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What if you don’t like your picture (in art or in life)?

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You could ditch it, rip it up, scribble over it…you could adapt adapt adapt.

What if there’s a gulf between the astoundingly beautiful vision in your head and the muck that’s appearing on the canvas? This is The Gap.    

Creativity lives in The Gap.

If you keep going, you have two fundamental choices.

  1. Keep trying to make your picture (or life) resemble the perfection of your imaginings. This likely leads to a wrestling match with your Inner Critic, your art-esteem, your materials, your existing picture (or life).

    and/or you could…

  2. Adapt adapt adapt. Follow your brush or gesture or what’s already appeared. Surrender to the Art of Emergence. Trust the process and the flow of your picture (or life). This option is far easier said than done. It goes against the grain of all we’re taught in our outcome-driven, get-it-right-or-die dominant culture.

Neither of these choices is right or wrong. Much art-making (and life) is a dance between Continue reading →

Blogbirth – Three Baby Elephants or Ten Million Microbes

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It’s been a long pregnancy.

In the time it takes for maybe three baby elephants, five whales or ten million microbes to be born, this blog has been gestating.

Why so long?

Desire and fear in equal measure. Let’s have a quick lesson in the Physics of Creativity According to Sally Swain.

Often as we come closer to fulfilling a burning dream, to honouring our creative yearnings, to saying YES to our authentic, alive, tingling selves, there’s a backlash. The equal weight of fear kicks in. It can be a tidal wave of doubt demons or the quiet ooze of avoidance and excuses. E might equal mc squared; I wouldn’t really know. But I do know that over twenty years’ experience of working and playing with my own creative process and that of others reveals that the Great Stultification can equal the surge of Creative Life Force. Continue reading →