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July 02, 2024

Should You Pick An Art Style? 🤔

By Dan Tanner  |   in art journal  | Tags: art musings , art journal , tamara laporte , Willowing Arts  

Should You Pick An Art Style? 🤔

Hello Creative Friend,

Hey ho there fellow creative travellers! How are you hanging in there over there? I hope you’re ok and that you are finding moments of joy and creativity in your days and that you take time for breathing and sitting still.

I’ve been busy preparing the final EVER Kaleidoscope 2024 course and prepping a little trip to Scotland with the fam while reminding myself to breathe and sit still for some moments in my days too. Even with all this chaos going on, it’s important, if possible, to take moments for grounding and centring. Not always easy to do but it’s keeping me going, that and spreading kindness, painting my heart out and lately; sending contemplative poetic pieces of writing into the world.

I wrote this on my facebook last week:

“I try.

I keep trying to see the sacred in everything but shadows blur my vision. She said: “When all is dark, consider you might be the light.”

I used to be, the light, but I’m so thin now, emotionally, that is. I’m thinned out by carrying the weight of the world, the weight of the shadows, the weight of myself; too thin to hold it, old bones about to crack, wispy like mycelium but untethered, maybe candy floss in the wind, is the better description, easily melted by a few drops of water, ghostly, transparent. I fear I’ve almost fully faded.

But I keep trying to see the sacred. To *find* the sacred and sometimes I do.

I catch the divine sometimes; it’s on my tongue in a word I speak, or in a paragraph of a book which makes me cry uncontrollably, in a crinkly smile wrinkle on someone’s face, in the lavish rawness of a singer’s voice, in a soft breeze that kisses my cheek, in mysterious concepts like string theory, in silver worn around wrists, in the intricacy of eyelashes, in orange & teal watercolour paint, in someone’s random act of kindness, in loyalty, in my dog who will not give up on trying to get me to pet her furry head, her body language so comical it’s an instant awakening.

Sometimes I’m attuned to the magic that is in every single moment, it’s as if each second is dripping with delectable manuka honey, magic everywhere, buzzing with intelligent electricity, and I am struck by a sense of ‘how could I not see this all along’ and it elicits a chaotic, explosive and colourful galaxy of euphoric emotions in me. It suddenly all makes sense, the profound everything of it all.

And finally, when the shadows come again, and I can feel myself sinking, there is that whisper; “you are the light, you are the light”. And the shadows? They are divine too.”

– Tamara Laporte

And I painted this owl to go with the piece of writing:

Both were very cathartic to create!

And because I’ve not been on youtube for a while, I made another rambly but fun vlog/ studio update/ paint an owl/ warble about things type video for you all the enjoy! 😜

I share a bit about my days, the art I’ve been creating, the books I LOVE reading and I answer the question: ‘Should You Pick An Art Style’? 

WATCH THE NEW VIDEO HERE


And a little heads up:

  1. Expressive Soul Portraits has finished running live, but is now available as a standalone!
  2. Summer Sale: if you wait until August 9th, you can buy Expressive Soul Portraits at a discounted price and many other good deals will be included in this sale too!
  3. Missed the Kaleidoscope Taster Week? You will be able to enjoy a 5 day replay early next week, yay!
  4. Kaleidoscope 2024 – is the final ever Kaleidoscope I will run! Don’t miss out on it, join here if you haven’t already. ♥️♥️♥️

Much love,
Tam ❤️🌟💕

PS. If you have a question for me you’d like answered in one of my youtube videos, pls leave me a comment or simply hit reply on this email and I’ll try to answer it in the next video! 😊

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Mixed media artist, teacher and author. I don’t see all IG msgs. For enq pls email hello@willowing.org - Join A Year of Magic & Fairy Tales:

You are worthy ♥️♥️♥️

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You are worthy ♥️♥️♥️

I love how gold leaf can add such magical touches to a painting. 😍😍😍

Open
I love how gold leaf can add such magical touches to a painting. 😍😍😍

Friends, this little guy, omg, he makes me melt. He’s a magical little troll, a messenger of nature, telling us all; “it will all be ok in the end”. He offers hugs, a listening ear, breathing sessions, sit-spots in nature with him and warm cookies if you give his hair a good brush once in a while. 😉

Open
Friends, this little guy, omg, he makes me melt. He’s a magical little troll, a messenger of nature, telling us all; “it will all be ok in the end”. He offers hugs, a listening ear, breathing sessions, sit-spots in nature with him and warm cookies if you give his hair a good brush once in a while. 😉

Rapunzel freed. 🖤✨💛

Open
Rapunzel freed. 🖤✨💛

Rapunzel – Freed.

I went on quite a journey with this painting. Reading the original Grimm version of Rapunzel deeply moved me: her long, beautiful hair cut by the witch who raised her, her exile into the wilderness while pregnant with twins, her survival of all that hardship, and finally her becoming the one who saves the prince.

To me, this is true female empowerment. I wanted to paint Rapunzel as defiant and transformed. And crucially, I wanted to give her long hair again - not as a ladder, not as something to be used or admired by others, but as a reclamation of power. A part of her body that was once appropriated becomes fully her own again.

Teaching on A Year of Magic & Fairy Tales; I`m loving diving deep into the original fairy tales, myths and stories and bringing one or other aspect alive of these stories on the page.

This piece is a `paint over collage` painting. We start off by laying down our collage elements and then layer paint, crayons, markers, acrylics, gold leaf etc on top. A deeply layered and moving process. 😍😍😍

I adore how this came out. I`m particularly in love with the lavenders, hot pink and layer collage pieces in this painting.

Open
Rapunzel – Freed.

I went on quite a journey with this painting. Reading the original Grimm version of Rapunzel deeply moved me: her long, beautiful hair cut by the witch who raised her, her exile into the wilderness while pregnant with twins, her survival of all that hardship, and finally her becoming the one who saves the prince.

To me, this is true female empowerment. I wanted to paint Rapunzel as defiant and transformed. And crucially, I wanted to give her long hair again - not as a ladder, not as something to be used or admired by others, but as a reclamation of power. A part of her body that was once appropriated becomes fully her own again.

Teaching on A Year of Magic & Fairy Tales; I'm loving diving deep into the original fairy tales, myths and stories and bringing one or other aspect alive of these stories on the page.

This piece is a 'paint over collage' painting. We start off by laying down our collage elements and then layer paint, crayons, markers, acrylics, gold leaf etc on top. A deeply layered and moving process. 😍😍😍

I adore how this came out. I'm particularly in love with the lavenders, hot pink and layer collage pieces in this painting.
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