Process Painting

For this project you are going to let go of any ideas or pre-conceived notions as you work with process painting . You put your unconscious in control and let the process rule the outcome. Process art is an approach to making art in which the final product is not the principal focus. The creative process; the actual art making is the main concern. With this approach, creating art becomes a journey through which we discover and reflect our inner vision.

Materials Needed
Watercolor or printmaking paper – Stonehenge is an affordable printmaking paper that comes in large sizes, which you can cut down. It will hold up to repeated working sessions.
Thick opaque water-based paints like tempera (cheapest) or gouache.
Palette with wells and palette knife for mixing colors
Brushes – variety of sizes – be sure to have a 1” or 2” brush for putting down wide swatches of color.
Refer to section on painting materials for more discussion on brushes.
colored pencils or watercolor pencils -(optional)

Getting Started
2 pieces of paper laid out side by side
a jar to hold your clean brushes with brush side up
2 jars of water for cleaning brushes as you work
paper towels for drying brushes when needed
Start with the primary colors; red, yellow and blue.

Let’s Paint
With your wide brush, wet one of your pieces of paper with clean water by brushing water onto it . Then quickly and without much thought put down swatches of primary color onto this paper.

You’ll notice that since the paper is wet the colors will merge and mix together unexpectedly.

Once you have the whole page covered, take your other piece of paper and place it on top of the paper with the colors.

Press the two pages together and then pull them apart to see what you’ve got.

At this point they look like mirror images of each other. Take a moment to look at them to see if you discover any images hidden there. You might try slightly closing your eyes. This makes your vision slightly unfocused and allows you to see beyond the crisp reality of everyday life into your inner vision.

Now choose one of the paintings to start working on again, drawing out and defining whatever images you have discovered. It’s not necessary to keep the two looking like mirror images.

Work on them separately but sometimes press them together again.

You can also press just a segment of one onto a segment of the other for more variety. In this manner you’ll be working back and forth between letting your conscious mind take the lead and then releasing them into the hands of your unconscious.

While working you can draw into the paint with colored pencils or with watercolor pencils.

After applying light colors and letting them dry, place a darker color on top. Now while the darker color is slightly wet draw a shape or line with the pencil and see how the lighter color underneath comes through.

Sometimes it takes longer than one working session to finish an art piece or a series of pieces. If you need more time for these, that’s ok. Often after taking a break and coming back to the work on another day, we can view our work with fresh eyes and see what the next step is.