Blooming True — And Falling in Love with Painting

The last five weeks have passed in a flash. A paint-, joy-, and discovery-filled flash. Five weeks ago, I started the Bloom True e-course hosted by Flora Bowley and Beth Nicholls. Flora is a fine artist and instructor and Beth is the woman behind Do What You Love for Life. They teamed up to create the most inspiring and information-packed e-course I've ever taken. I'm certainly no expert and haven't taken nearly the number of courses others have, but I think I can safely say that Flora's course is leaps and bounds above many others.

Flora's generosity in teaching is incredible. She's supportive, joyful, shares her process with grace and whole-heartedness that just makes me want to be a better person, as well as a better painter. She focuses on everything positive, giving us exercises to build our creative courage, banish our negative self talk and inner critics, and just BE. In the moment. Inspired. Intuitive. Bold. Brave.

I learned about Flora's course through Beth's site, watching the informational video as soon as it hit my in-box. I was mesmerized, enthralled. And then the words, "Be Brave" painted on Flora's studio wall flashed on the screen, and I knew. I knew I HAD to take this class. You see, sometime late last fall, I decided that "Be Brave" was going to be my mantra for the new year. And then quickly re-decided that it would be my motto starting right then. Those words just came to me, tapped me quietly on the shoulder, whispered in my ear. I had to obey them.

I immediately signed up for the class. This was November 30, 2011. I told my husband that he didn't need to get me anything for Christmas. I just bought my gift. And what a gift it has been. There is SO much more I need and want to learn, and this course has set me down a path that has made me incredibly happy. I'll be painting and just start smiling.

I never thought I would be a painter. I avoided painting classes in high school even though I loved taking art classes and went out of my way to take as many as I could. Painting was so daunting to me. I was much more comfortable with drawing or using other media. Now, I'm in love with it. I want to paint all the time!

One of the other women taking the Bloom True course had a slide show of a painting in progress on her blog. I loved the idea so much that I created one as well. This painting process involves lots of layers, and I also rotated the canvas MANY times as I went through the layers. I've oriented them all the same way for this slide show so you can see the evolution. This painting is not finished. I need at least one more layer, but I wanted to share this with you in the mean time.

The quality isn't the greatest, but you can see all of these images in my flickr set. I've got three canvases going for the class; this is just one.