Free Expressionism - Painting like you just don't care

1. Welcome to Free Expressionism!: Hi there, I'm Christopher Clark and welcome to my painting course, free expressionism painting like you just don't care. The first course of this that I've ever done was kind of an experiment based on a fun conversation I had with a friend of mine. Really wanted to get back into painting and was really timid about it and it didn't really know how to approach it and how to start. And we just have so many inhibitions when it comes to making art. I thought I'd make a fun video to just try to shed all that and just let yourself play and have fun, and let all your emotions and thoughts and ideas come out and organically just get them onto the surface with, with paint. And it's very like it gets all your stuff off your chest. I guess I'll run through the ones that I just happened to do. I did this lovely little flower seen this autumn little tree here. And these were all done very spontaneously. Just, just found some fun images that I thought it was just said what I wanted to say at the moment, this sort of nighttime cloudy moonscape thing. Then this evening, sunset. These are just all done on crummy paper with crummy acrylic paint. It's very accessible and cheap and easy for you to jump right in first-class, I've taught in acrylic. Usually I teach in oils and I teach a little more calculated fine art, traditional sort of impressionism stuff. But this is a lot more spontaneous and free and use cheap acrylics so you can just put a pile of paint on there. Who cares? These old crummy brushes. So you can just smear and don't worry about if you ruin a brush. Dunk them in a bucket of water on the side so they don't die, but don't worry about it. You use crummy materials. A couple of times, I'll use a piece of plastic to smear paint on there. I use my fingers a lot. I use the backside of the brush. You can use anything. I use a palette knife. You can use literally anything I'm looking around for. I've used paper towels Before. I have a spray bottle. You can do all kinds of fun stuff. I fling paint on there. It's really just whatever comes to you might you might use some tools that I've never used before. That's really up to you. And use whatever service, don't use anything expensive. Because you really just want this to be liberating. You're not going to ruin anything. That you're not going to ruin, whatever you're working on. You're going to just play with it. Use cheap disposable stuff, use cardboard use. I used a watercolor, like a watercolor block with four crummy warped page, two pages left in it that I found in the corner. Might've ended up in the trash. So it doesn't matter what you paint on. This is really a fun exercise like doodling. Let yourself be a kid and just smear paint around. It's really fun. Wear clothes you don't care about. The first painting, I wore a really nice blue shirt that I'm like, oh, this was a mistake and I change it to this one. Then do a place where you can make a mess. Hopefully you have an area. You can really just be uninhibited. There is no, there's nobody watching you. These paintings aren't for sale. No one's gonna see them. There's very private. And you don't have to post them online. You don't have to show them to anybody, which sets you free to do whatever you want. There's not a right or wrong way to do it. Every painting is gonna be beautiful because it's gonna be a reflection of you on the surface. So it's really just your journey. It's your thoughts and experiences. And you can hopefully take the images that I've used as just an idea and use your own and just sort of go from there. This is really a stepping stone for you. Maybe it can be irregular therapeutic, meditative thing. I hope. So. With that, we'll get started with our first painting and we'll go to the easel right now. 2. Painting 1: Flowers: Today we're going to have some fun. This painting we're gonna do today is not about making a finished painting. It's not about trying to copy the picture. It's not about anything you preconceived before about what painting is. This is really about expressing and just getting whatever emotions or inhibitions or anything out and onto the canvas so you can look at it. We're gonna be very cathartic today and just have fun paramount for this exercise practice for this little, little playground we're gonna have today is that this painting is not for sale. This is you saying this to yourself? This painting is not for sale. No one will ever see this painting. This is just you and this little moment. This is like your mirror right here. We're going to show ourselves on the mirror and it's just between you and me. The painting this is you talk into your painting. It doesn't matter. I've got all my favorite colors out. It doesn't matter what kind of paint to use I'm using acrylic today, which is different for me for a painting course, because I liked the fact that it will dry quickly and we can play with it. We're gonna try that. These are all my favorite acrylic colors. I do have them sort of set out in a little color wheel, which I like because I know where they all are. So you organism how you want, or you can sort of mimic this. Yellows, orange, red, blue, green, and the whites over here. Then the reference that we're using, it can be any reference that you like that It's just fun. This was a picture of a friends garden that I took that was just pretty one morning. I just found it in, pull it up here and hey, why not? But the reference is just a guide today, we're not trying to copy this and making a beautiful finished painting. We're just going to let whatever comes out, come out. We've got a little spray bottle of water here. Every periodically you just sort of give you your paints a little spritz. It keeps them wet because acrylic dries really fast and the paints will skin over and they just get harder to use. So I've just got a couple of tubs of water over here. Some old yogurt container wherever the **** this was. I'm gonna start with a big old giant brush. We're gonna use big brushes. We're not going to get little minute details today. This is not about a detailed painting. This is about just moving the paint and having a good time. You might get messy. I probably wore the wrong shirt for this. I like the shirt. Maybe I'll try to not get an apron on, but okay. So let's get started just going to dip my brush and some water. This painting has read, I'm sorry, it has purply flowers and lavender flowers and white flowers. That's great. Null for the moment. I'm just like, You know what, I liked the color red. I'm gonna go get some. This isn't even a Canvas. This is a piece of watercolor paper that I found in the corner. And I'm just going to fling some on there. I hope it doesn't fly off though. Maybe secure it down real good. I'm not I'm not really I'm just flying in and having a good time. This today is about having a good time. I got some on there. Maybe it is a little darker down here. I'll get some darker something. Maybe you can smush however you want to do it. You can even dip, dip the pain and the water and do a little bit of this little flick, a little fling just for fun. This is why, as we mentioned, do this in a place that's that you can make a mess. Just dip it in there. This is some big old cheap brush from Home Depot. I can wash it out. I like orange too. I like reds and oranges. So I'm gonna put some orange up here. Whatever colors you like. I am glancing at my reference now and then I'm like, Oh, maybe it's a little lighter up here, I guess. Hey, we'll add some lighter color. I don't know why this has gone. I'm just having fun. Maybe it's a little lighter there. Great. Maybe there is some green down here. Let's throw some green and push the brush to the side. Here we go with we're losing the painting already. Maybe you can get a more secured Canvas or something, but do something cheap like this is just cheap paper. I didn't care where it was. Maybe more. Maybe we will tape it down again real quick. I can find my tape. It doesn't fly off the thing. But literally this can be any any old crummy paper you found, any crummy Canvas, a piece of cardboard. It doesn't matter. Today is not about making. Again, we're not making a finished painting here. We're just having fun. We're just letting it all out. There we go. Hey, we'll do this. I like this. You did just touch the brush in water and you can go womb and really. Or maybe get some paint here. I see I already got some on my shirt. Gets him here and we get it watery and just fling. Do that and make the sound. And this is all about just having fun and getting it out. Maybe there's just a bunch of big brushes. These are cheap old bristle brushes. You can use whatever you want. I might reach over and grab something later. Yeah, this is today. This is not about making a finished piece that somebody will see and judge you on. And you have to sell it and you have to have that that pressure. I can put the flowers wherever I want. I liked, I liked just like this purple color. It's beautiful. Maybe it gets a little lighter here. I'll grab some white and some red. Just like really let the paint fly. No one's ever going to see this. That frees you up, that's liberating. Don't post this online. Don't ever show it to anyone. The fact that you don't have the pressure or if someone else is going to see this, you know, a gallery or your followers, screw your followers. Today is about you, today is about this is what I feel inside. I've been personally needed to do this for awhile. This is a little cathartic for me too. I was explaining this to someone very dear friend of mine who wanted to get into painting again. She was like I just feel so pressured about what it's gonna look like and what people are gonna think. And I have to make a finished painting and as someone going to want to buy it, I'm like, I was just talking to her about, you know what, forget all that crap. You need to just paint for you. Here's some yellow and these trees up here, I don't know what I'm doing. Like I see, Here's a little bit right here too. This could look like total garbage in the end, but who cares this is for you. You can, just, when you're done, you stare at it and see all your favorite colors and all your big brushstrokes. And you're just getting it all out into the world. Into your world, not the world. Because again, no one's going to see this. The fact that you don't have that pressure. If someone else needing to see what you're doing, no one's standing over your shoulder. No one's judging you. You don't to worry about how many likes you get. You're not worried about offending your followers. Like, Oh my God, take the pressure off yourself and just paint and have a good time for you. And maybe there's some sky up here. Look how much paint I'm using this these blobs of paint or just like I'm going crazy. I like this beautiful sky. I don't know where this is going on. Like there's a little sky right there. Hey, let's do I just loved this. Here's another fun thing. Get your brush, get some wet paint here. And take your nice wet brush. A stiff bristle brush works best for this. Take a back of another one. And I'm doing this, I'm letting the Brussels, Brussels flip past. You can use your finger, which just makes an extra mass, but you can just use the back of another brush. You can really get some paint on there. And then hey, when you run this, Haidt is clean off the brush. We're having fun here, just flinging paint around. Very different than anything else I've ever done. But something that people don't really talk about, it's necessary sometimes just to get it out. I kind of liked it. It's maybe the whole thing is just sky up here. I don't know. There's there's trees and say I'm not looking at that, I'm just looking at color. I don't know, Back to my big giant brush here. Let me make some beautiful green. Maybe in here there's some green. I'm just really moving. Just keep the brush moving. Don't stop and think too long. It's kind of like what do they call those stream-of-consciousness writing where you decide, I don't know, just write anything random, random thought that comes to your mind. Just get it out. Don't judge, don't overthink it. Don't stop. Just move and just have fun and play. C, I'm talking and doing this, so it's a little distracting for me. The experience is little different. You might have an easier time because it's just you and your quiet or you put on your favorite music or whatever. I'm having to explain what I'm doing. Sometimes I have to stop and think. But anyway, let's let's see here I like there's some needs to be some more dark purply greens down here. I'm not using any medium. It's just big piles of acrylic paint. And honestly, at this stage it's wet enough. Where it is still moves around quite a bit. It hasn't dried yet. Sometimes it's dries and I can I can put more water in it. I just water. That's all I'm using. You can use medium if you want, but I'm not currently. Maybe these, maybe these flowers need to have a little more flowery in them. Maybe a little more. Pop them out. And you've run out of paint, just reach over and grab more. I've got another thing of it over here. Spend 20 minutes on this. If that 15 minutes, like it's really just to tell you, maybe you run out of breath until you're like, wow, and you can stop and look and see what you did. But I don't know what I'm doing. I like red, I want more red. I know the flowers in the picture or purple, but I actually, I used on the red, I need more. You can use cheap paints for this. That way you don't have to worry about using a lot. Go back, spritz them. Just keep them keep them fresh. What was I doing? I do keep my paints in a water bucket. Let you know just what does this this was just because acrylic will dry your brushes out. So keeping in here when you're not using them, so they don't dry out and get ruined. I just cleaned my brush on the wall. I do have that luxury. Thankfully. I want more red and these flowers, look at the size of the brush I'm using. I mean, what is this? This is a ten, but I wasn't looking at the number. I just like, I want a big fat cool brush right now. Now there's some like, I like there's a light, maybe I'll use some. This is just another handful of old crummy brushes. You look, I'm getting messy already. That's okay. Maybe there's just some white pretty flowers right here. I like that. Oops. I painted on top of my other flower, Oh no, big deal. I like, I want more of this sky color. Let's go back to that. This is just white and some blue or something. This is another fun. Let's do this again. This is get some water on here, and I have a separate thing of water in case this turns into total sludge. Yeah, this is a fun thing. Get some water on your brush, just mix some very watery paint. See it's very watery. And take another brush handle. And just like push, you get some splatters. Those are really fun. They are very expressive. Maybe we'll do that with the red to where was my red one? I'll get some water and I'm making a total mess on my palate. That's okay. I want some of this red color and I will change my shirt before I do the next piece because I do like the shirt and I don't want necessarily get completely covered in paint. I did it because it has a color to put my microphone. I I mean, I'm an artist, I guess. Every shirt I own is covered in paint. People see me like, what's that on your shirt? Am I really you have to ask me that. You know what Let's do orange. Orange is fun. Get some watery, nice and it drips whatever. Who cares, this is fun. This is the handle that I was using to flip paint. What have we been going for? 15 minutes so far. And it's already just a beautiful, fun, messy pile of me. And that's what this needs to be. This is a messy pile of you that no one else is judging and no one is seeing. No one who's critiquing or commenting or you're not trying to impress anybody. It's just you playing. You need to give yourself permission to display. Sometimes it's not work, it's not a masterpiece. It's not being judged. Nobody's gonna see it. Nobody cares. You don't even care. It's just fun. That's what I think we don't do enough of. I like these beautiful cool yellows. I'm just going to make a bunch of those. And those are barely in the picture, but I liked them a lot. We're really not carrying paint like you just don't care. What does this look like? I don't care. I'm just having fun. I love these more paint than I've used in a long time, even in my serious work. So it is kind of refreshing actually. And no one's ever going to buy this. Just for you. If you're looking in the mirror right now, whatever comes out is going to be beautiful. Because wherever you have inside here is beautiful. And we have a terrible definition of that word in our society. And you had fun and you enjoyed it and they're all your favorite colors. And you used a picture of your favorite thing as a reference or you just did an edit your head, then that is beautiful, that's you. And that's what you need to spend time within a fund with. I think I want more of a bright sky. I want I want that brighter color up here. It starts to get dry pretty quick so I can go over it decently fast. There was I don't know. Occasionally I'll glance over at my reference. It is just a guide, it is just a reference. Don't read into it too much. As if like, you have to stick to that. There's a big old blob of paint there. I'm going to leave that right there. I see. It's like it's like it fell over and it kinda is drooping there, but it's fun. There's like big hunks. Just don't even think about it. You don't have to smash this to death. You can really just let go and have a good time. Then. Maybe if you just once you sort of stop and slow down, you're like maybe that's when you're finished and you can just sort of sit back and look at what you did and relax and just enjoy every little moment. Oh my God. This is very cathartic for me. Even I don't paint like this. I, I teach impressionism painting and I'm very loose and brushy, but not like this. Even this is good as a professional for me to just reset. Just have fun and let it all out and just make a freaking mess. Oh my God, you're like a kid, like you don't care. It's really fun to be able to do that and give yourself permission to do that. Here's I think we can call this one finished. If I want to later, I can go back and play with it. You can do this forever. Just keep piling paint on if you want. Or if you just like you said, all you needed to say right now and you're like That feeling is out and you can look at it. Maybe, maybe you are done. That's your choice, it's your decision. It doesn't matter. No one's going to see it anyway. You can throw it away. You could burn it. You could put it in the closet and pull it out next week and look at it and go, wow, that's how I was feeling. Or we could go and do another one and compare them. This is really your own little like your free therapy right here. The cheapest therapist you've ever had. So anyway, maybe we'll, we'll call this one down and maybe I'll clean up and start a new one and we'll play with something else. Cleanup, take a break, get a, get a drink, walk around, and we'll see you back here in a couple of seconds and we'll try it again. 3. Painting 2: Autumn Tree: We're ready for our pile of you number two, if you will. I changed my shirt and something. I don't care about as much. I get a little paint here and there. I thought this time we do a tree that I saw once in a park in autumn, I love autumn, I love orange. All the autumn colors. So I'm going to just start with my big giant brush here. Get it wet. And I don't know, yellow. Yellow, Here's another beautiful yellow color. No idea. And maybe we'll throw some brown autonomy business. And I like doing that too. Just throwing some stuff on there. I don't know. Smush it. Smash it with your fingers if you want, wherever you want to do. I don't know that it gets darker over here. And it's there's some greens in there too. I'm just playing. Maybe I'll use another brush. I love. Orange, one of my favorite colors. This is sort of this tree shape. I'm not even thinking about like is this a tree? What does it see, these colors? And I get excited and I loved that Midas pile that on my paint. I pilot on my brush. There you go. Here's something fun. Here is a piece of plastic from a rapper, Not like $0.50, but like a package. So you don't have to use a brush. I'm just going to do this. It's still very wet. It'll actually do this. It'll actually work in a few minutes. This will be probably too dry to do this with, but that's fun. I'll put this aside and do that again later. There is some fun blues. I loved these rich blue skies. I'm going to just really have fun with those. Maybe I want those more green, more bright. And I just love these colors, so I'm just going to have fun and fling them on here and wherever they end up. I'm just using, I'm using a lot of paint. I'm using a big brush. This is a big old fat, old crummy brush that I probably would've thrown away a while ago, but I didn't. And I'm glad because now it's helping me with my catharsis, which is really what we're doing here. There's some reds in here. If you see a color, just grab it and go for it. This isn't about the, I don't think so hard. Honestly. We are using a reference just to give yourself a little nudge because sometimes that's what you need. Here's a ground I guess. I don't know. Maybe there's a floor or to have some kind a little bit of a trunk. You can use a palette knife to just to push this paint around. This isn't even a Canvas I'm using. This is a watercolor block that I've found that probably would've ended up in the trash. This is a big old giant, cheap palette knife that I got somewhere. I don't know. Maybe those shadows look at that. Yeah, just just really smear it. It's kinda fun. You know what? I liked this palette knife, I'm going to keep using it. I'm gonna put some yellow. Want to put these brushes down? That's kind of fun. I just love all these colors and I'm gonna really run with it. Just grab them and thrombin and play with them and enjoy them. Like again, this is like This is what kind of day I was feeling I needed I needed some bright colors in my life because maybe maybe you're going through a really rough time and you need, you just need to see this in front of you. Maybe this isn't inside you at all, but you really wish it was. So that's why you do this. Like art is about that. It's about this expression. It's not about making it look like the picture. That's for another time. This is about having fun and creating and expressing. And again, this painting is not for sale. No one will see this painting. This is yours, this is you and the mirror. Just by yourself having fun. You're allowed to play. I want some more of this bright fun. I just love these bright greens. And maybe over here is more like this. Bright blue. Just smashing. There's a couple in here in the middle. I'll just maybe take it and maybe I'm angry. I don't know. And I'll get the outside this, I'll get the palette knife wet. I'm just dipping it in the water here. And I'll just mix it whenever, wherever colors on there. Maybe I'll even take it and let it drip down. I'm just putting some water on the palette knife and I'm letting it drip. You're like a kid. Let yourself be like a kid and just play. We'll mix some water in here. You can be as spontaneous with this as you want. Just try out different things. Because you're just playing like a kid in the sandbox. You know, you didn't care what you did or what you made. You just had a good time. You made your own little stories. You didn't care what you're doing until your mom called the N for dinner. Until then you were in your own little world. Like Bob Ross says, good above, I got them right here. Good old Bob. He says, this is your world. You are the creator. This is, you can find freedom and expression here. Well, that's what we're doing. Thanks Bob. You're welcome. Godless and happy painting my friend Bob has done. I don't know. Maybe there's some more. I'm just going to grab a random brush here, maybe the same, or are these light colors on the ground here or something? This is very spontaneous. Don't overthink it, just if you see a color you loved, just grab it. Hey, maybe there's some purples in here. I don't know. Maybe maybe not so dark, but maybe there's some purple leanness happening here. Well, let's do the, let's do the old water brush flinging thing. With maybe this fun, beautiful purple color. We just made. Whatever you got inside you. Whatever is coming out here, it is you. And it is beautiful already. You don't need to try to make it beautiful. You don't need to overthink it. It's inside and it's been waiting to come out. And now you get a finally throw it out and look at it. Just celebrate it and celebrate yourself. Because this is about you. And this is about you're using whatever your took a little snapshot or you're doing this just from memory, you're having fun. This was whatever you were feeling at the moment. And that's okay. You give yourself permission to be okay with that. You just have fun with it. I like these greens. Maybe we'll do some more of that flunky green stuff. Maybe it's not going to overthink. It sees that it's hard to not. Sometimes you let yourself get too into it. I want some water. This is just water and cheap acrylic paint. I do oils a lot. Mainly. I do incorporate acrylics as an underpainting sometimes. But a lot of times it is just oil gonna smack. Sometimes you just want to, you can delicately just do this. Let's say you're in that kind of mood. I'm going to go through all the different moods here. You don't have to do all these in your painting, maybe just today. You mix your beautiful color and you're just you're just like, I just feel like I love this brushstroke. I love that brushstroke and I love this color, this beautiful green, the soft, dark green. These are the little leaves that are still hanging on to summer. We all told me all this. Hanging onto summer with every last ounce of energy we got. Winters beautiful, but it means, I'm sorry, Autumns beautiful, but it means Winter is coming. Not Game of Thrones style, but in real life. Maybe it's just like, I just want to keep that summer. This is you today. And that's okay. I'm just like, I'm just enjoying this. I just I'm not I haven't looked at my reference in a few minutes and that's okay. Then maybe we'll do I don't know. I'm really liking where this is going. Maybe I do want this to look a little more like a DRI. I'm just going to grab whatever make something sort of a tree, I guess there's a trunk, right? Again, the reference is really just for a nudge to guide you in the right direction. Because sentiment as you sit in front of that devastating white canvas and you just freeze. I don't know what to do. Well, maybe the maybe the picture is like this was a little moment that I enjoyed yesterday walking in the park or this is a sunset I saw once years ago and I will have phones and take a picture, you save it. I would suggest keeping the reference simple. Maybe we'll play with doing a more complicated one because it's really not about the reference. The reference was just to give you a little push, it a little inspiration. But then really this is still just your fun creativity happening here. This isn't about, this isn't about the picture. This isn't about making a beautiful painting at all. This is about the big pile of you that you're enjoying, spending and put it on your favorite music. And really just let yourself have a good time. What do I want more of? I really like these light yellows and maybe I will use a brush now. You know what, I want to use this. I brought back my wrapper. I'm going to fold it over and use a clean part. I'm just going to dip it in here. Let me just dip the classic. Not only does it save this from going into a landfill. Now it's part of your art. I'll take some orange. I liked the orange. That's pretty I don't care. It came from me, so yes, it's pretty it's beautiful. Whatever you got inside you is beautiful. You have to give yourself permission to acknowledge that. I want some more of this beautiful sky color. Maybe it even comes over here. And on this side I like that it's a little more of this more purply blue couple of little chunks showing through here and there. This is a lot of breathing. A lot. You're exercising demons or autumn trees or whatever you have inside you that you need to get out. That's exactly what this is for. This is to get things out and have them in front of you so you can actually look at them. You can process them and then just go back and you just put your face right up to it and just look at all these beautiful little moments inside here that this is like your subconscious, like just scrambled up. But you can actually study it now. Maybe you can see the things you've been struggling with for so long and just just let it out, man. It just I can see the tangles of things in my brain that I've been trying to figure out. It's very, this is why you do this for yourself and nobody else. This is hard for me. I'm opening up this all to you guys. This is me you guys are all seeing. But this is important. I have to show this. Somebody just having a conversation with me recently, just communicated this desire to start painting again, but she was so scared, I don't know. I'm afraid it's not gonna look good. I can't show it to anybody. I was just talking with her about it and I was explaining this process that just really just came to me. Why don't you just try this? And she was like that sounds like so much fun. And I'm like, You know what, I need to share this. I need to try it myself because I've never done this before. This is literally the first time I've done this for these videos. And it's really fun and wow, it's cathartic. I liked the flaky paint. That's really fun. I'm gonna get some fund yellows and inflict some color on here. Maybe I'll wash that out occasionally, you can wash your brush if you really need some clean color. I just got a bunch of green on there awhile. Green and orange and there we go. That is like the craziest. Call the owner even call it an autumn tree because that's not really what you're doing. This is a big pile of me that you're all getting to see right here. Then when you feel like you're slowing down, maybe you said all you need to say and you've maybe you just sit there and cry in front of it, you know, because you're like, Oh, finally, that's all out. It's very therapeutic. This is free therapy. Man. Maybe this one has finished. Maybe when you've you've just calm down. You just maybe a little more peaceful than you were 15 minutes ago. Isn't that worth it? Just doesn't have a great time. Just filling in color and loving every little leaf on this tree and every little pile of color and experiencing the transition that we see from summer to autumn, assuming gonna be winter, like we're used to experience that right now. And in 15 minutes, we just became one with this beautiful tree. I don't remember. This tree was I hope it's I'm sure it's still there, but I wish it well, whatever it's doing, because we just shared a fun little moment here and that's what was really special. Great. Maybe. I'll clean this up again. You just spray it down with water and just scrape it off with a palette knife or with a eraser. Really easy and clean your brushes, clean your water and tear this off and do another one. If you use a piece of cardboard, use a piece of thick paper. Thin paper will just disintegrate. Unless that's kind of fun for you. Tape a piece of paper to a piece of wood. It doesn't really matter what you paint on. It really can be anything because this is just an extra. Don't use expensive canvases. Don't use anything that costs money that you were afraid to ruin. Just ruined it, man, totally just ruined it. That's where this is for. Maybe I'll find, maybe I'll find a darker image, something that maybe you're feeling a little somber and you need to get that out. So maybe we'll try something with something like that. Next. We'll take a break, clean up, and I will see you back here in a few minutes. 4. Painting 3: Moonlight: Okay, So here's if you're feeling a little more somber today, you need a little more quiet or more blue, a little more dark. I had this great little moon seen here to do. You can start. Here's a quick little fun thing, just because at the blue doesn't mean you just start with blue. I like this Alizarin crimson color. And I might just start with that. You can start with whatever colors make you happy. I can even take my palette knife and swish it around. This is just watercolor papers. Again, just an old pad that I found somewhere. Maybe it has green toward the edges. Already. I'm thinking like, oh, I would prefer my moon to be somewhere else. I'm gonna move it where I want it because this is about me. While I'm down here doing some darks, just do this. I like this blue color. Maybe my moon was going to be right there. I'll take this again. Maybe here's like, oh, there's water. Look at that. Maybe these are the clouds. I'm doing this fast to sort of get it moving. But you can take all the time you need to. You can take all day to do this. You can just really relax. Again. It's not about making a nice, pretty finished, careful painting. But if you were just in the mood to paint slowly and carefully and you're just having fun, That's great. Do whatever you need to do. I thought about using my piece of plastic. This is the same one. It's still got some paint on it. But I wanted to do maybe my moon is here. Maybe here's the reflection. This is a little more specific of a scene. So that might attempt to you to be more specific with your reference. Do whatever you want to do. But again, I'm not trying to finish just painting in any kind of nice way. This is just me screwing around, letting loose and having fun. I don't know. I'm seeing some of these blues somewhere. We'll get it a little wet or dry or brush. Maybe. Maybe it's a little lighter. Just like sort of smack and the paint on there. That's what I'm in the mood for right now. Maybe a little more of that. Little fun reflect these stuff, see that? That can be you right now. You don't have to have any. This is where you can experiment to it. Maybe, maybe you are trying to make good things and you can experiment with stuff. I want us some nice purply dark stuff here. I do like some of these clouds that I want to, let me try to put it in. Because again, this painting is not for sale. No one will ever see this painting. This painting isn't going to get posted online. No one's watching you do this unless that's your choice. But I would recommend doing these alone for awhile. Because it's really crucial that you just don't have the expectations of somebody waiting for you to finish. A gallery waiting on this or a person judging your this is for you and for you alone. I love these dark purple colors. This is, this is what this painting is about right now. Somber, quiet. Maybe I'll see more of that over here too. And this purple is great. I'll see more of that. Negative. I don't know why this is going this could look like total crap and that's that's, that's not really even accurate. It's, it's beautiful. Don't judge it by our art standards because then you're just going to get frustrated and stop and overthink it. And like, oh, maybe I need to mix this color, right? And I don't know. Like, that's not what this was about at all. No judgment. No. No other viewers other than you. This is about your somber feeling, your own quiet time with yourself. Maybe. I do like that somebody's clouds have some here. It will just take some of this stuff here. Like you can see a little bit of this happening here. And I'm going to smash this with my finger. Because why not? It is acrylic which dries fast, but it is wet enough right now where it will still do fun things. Still smushed around. Some of it's dry, some of it's wet. It's kind of unpredictable. This is pretty haphazard. That's okay. Maybe finally it's time to put a nice, this is where my moon is going to go. Some spark leaves if that's what you like. Here. Ready? I'll do my favorite thing. Some water and some paint. I can go sideways like this and go over here. I want white. Just pure white. Get paint everywhere. Just for you. I can smush this stuff around. Look at that water. I don't even know if that's water or not, but it's beautiful. I love it. This is, this is exactly how you're feeling right now. And it needs to come out or it'll just eat you alive. We all do on way too much all the time. I'm just going to dip my finger in this pane. Again, you're just a kid playing right now. This is you have the permission to play. You need to give yourself that permission because no one else does. Everyone else's so serious and you have to do all things perfect. And if you're an artist, you have to produce, you have to keep your customers happy and you have to post regularly online and so you don't lose your followers and God just once in a while can just shut up, tell the whole world is shut up. And let me just play and have fun. That's really, really important. I like this green too. I don't know why I've abandoned by brushes, but hey, that's what this is about. I'm just going to get my finger wet. Like some green on the sides here. Maybe some of this purple and some of these clouds is kinda fun. Clearly, I've used several different random tools. Traditional ones, brushes, piece of plastic. Someone was telling me that they've made a brush out of rubber bands all tied to a stick. I'm like, That sounds fun. I didn't have time to do that before this class, but that does sound like a lot of fun. I have stopped looking at my reference because again, it's not a reference because I'm not trying to make a finished painting. It's just an idea. It was just kind of a mood that captured me for that moment and I needed it to just guide me a little bit. Sometimes that's all you need. You just didn't need a little little guide. Maybe we will do. I'm just going to literally abandoned the brushes and it's kind of a nice tactile experience. It's like writing. If you've ever bought a journal and write in it with pen and ink in your hand or pencil or whatever. But like not typing, not writing a blog that people are gonna read, you're actually just writing on paper with your hands. That is a really beautiful organic experience. And there's something to, that. People don't really get to experience much anymore. This is kind of a really enjoying this actually. It's making some great textures that I actually couldn't get with a brush and my little fingerprints everywhere. So it's like this is like my little moment. This is like a proves that it was me that I was here. If some forensic person analyze this, they were like, yeah, we picked up his fingerprints all over the painting. That's mine. No one can take that. And kind of just liking this. These are just cheap acrylic paints. You could use oils for this, but they're just a lot more expensive often. You might be too hesitant to use them. You want to just be free and uninhibited. This is what it is about, is getting rid of inhibitions and not being worried about using too much paint because it's expensive and someone's going to yellow cells the best of these days, I better make yellow paintings. It's not about any of this stuff. Cheap acrylic paint, its use your favorite colors. Put a big pile on there so you can just use it and be free and not worry about it. It's not expensive. Use random tools and old crummy brushes. Don't ever throw out brushes. I've got buckets of brushes that I just keep for random occasions like this because you never know when you're going to need some kind of fun brush. I like that pink. I'm slowing down because I'm, I'm talking and explaining. When you're doing this, you can do it whatever pace you want. I encourage sort of a stream of consciousness pace. If you're just taking your own time and doing this at your own leisure, you can take all the time you need. Or if you have the desire to just crank through it and just fling paint, do it. That is what this exercise is for. Those are fun. Yes. So I'm slowing down and talking. So I'm thinking about a lot of other concepts while I'm sharing this process with you. But this can be when you're quiet and you're at home, or do this in the park if you see a pretty tree and you bring your stuff out with you, whatever, whatever is comfortable, put on your favorite music. And just don't think about anything else. Really, just have fun and let yourself go like I've never painted like this before and it's really fun. I'm just letting myself loose. Sometimes you kind of slowly. I don't want to have been 12 minutes since I started this painting, but sometimes that's all it takes. Kind of slowing down. So I'm like, I think this is all I have to say. This is, this is me and my little dark, somber moon moment, but it's also lovely and inspiring turmoil and it's a storm brewing. But it's like this hopeful full moon that's lighting the way so many messages that you're sending to yourself that had just been sitting up here, locked away because people don't let you create like this. You usually have to create with a deadline in a result and followers, you know, sales and all these things in mind. But this is not that, this is just fun. Just playing and look what you look like. You can make. You get to look in the mirror maybe for the first time in a long time and no one's there to tell you anything about it. You are, whatever you're looking at is beautiful. You've had this beauty locked away inside you. Now. Now you get to confront it. And you get to admit, yes, I am beautiful. I just proved it to myself. And that's pretty moving experience. Let it all out. I'm really enjoying this painting. I know it's very moving and an exciting and coming at the same time. That was fun. What should we do next? I'll think of something. Clean up here. Always keep your, keep your paints every ten minutes to sort of get a little spritz. And if you need to clean up, Here's a quick little little to-do on that since you've got a few minutes. I tried to keep my videos to about 20 minutes. Even if they're one long painting. I just got it wet. Just take a big palette knife. You can scrape it up, scrape it off into the thing. Or if you have a scraper, the paint scraper, like if you buy at Home Depot or something, you can scrape all this stuff up. Scrape around your wet paint and don't dip your fingers in it like I just did. Because you can do a bunch of these. Get a bunch of old crummy paper. I, I've heard you use newsprint that it disintegrates during the process. But hey, maybe that's part of the fun, maybe that's part of the message. Use a cardboard. Any old saved pieces of cardboard could totally work. Don't use expensive things at all that are going to inhibit you from just having fun and doing whatever you want. Nothing worse than having a really big, expensive canvas. It's here and it's big and blank and terrifying. The cheaper it is the better because then you won't care about ruining it. And then you won't ruin it. You'll make something beautiful out of it. That's honestly how you paint anyway. Because whatever you do, you're never gonna ruin it. It's yours. Perfect. That worry is just you blocking your own. You're getting in your own way. So here's a way to get out of your own way. And maybe you can carry this process into a proper finished painting that you do want the world to see. It's educational in several ways. We'll clean up my brushes and do my water again, and we'll do another one. 5. Painting 4: Sunset: Okay, We've got a fun bright sunset, maybe to cheer things up a little bit since we just did a more somber moonscape one. This is not the most gorgeous reference picture ever in the world is just a picture I snapped of a beautiful sunset with my phone while I was driving, which I don't recommend, but I did it anyway and I do it all the time. Anyway. I'm just going to start overthinking it. Get my big old giant brush here. You're gonna think I'm crazy. But I'm gonna start with purple because I like purple and I am crazy. That's why I'm doing this self therapy that I can therapy IES myself. Have some fun. Again, it doesn't matter what you start with. Maybe I'll start to bring this, bring this out a little bit. It might be a little muddy at first. That's alright. Little dry. And it'll, it'll get what you watch. You'll be surprised at how pretty this might get. Maybe I'll take some I'm going to start to lighten it up in the center or wherever, wherever my sunset is gonna be. Maybe here's some orange. Again, this is also your place where you can play and take chances with things that you might not normally do on painting that you were planning on finishing. You have this plan for His perfect masterpiece that you're gonna do. You probably won't take chances like this, which is a shame because it's when you can sometimes make your most brilliant decisions. I was just sort of taken some pinks and oranges and stuff and pushing them out from the center with a big old giant, huge palette knife. It was like the Bob Ross palette knife kind of shape. I'm going to keep going with that. Maybe I'll use a smaller brush. I don't know. Maybe it's like right here. Here's my son said he sort of thing. I'm sure at all anyone could ever say these were good. Which is a terrible metric to judge this exercise with. I'm sure some of you were like looking at us like, Yeah, but Chris, you're a professional artist. Of course yours is gonna be beautiful years. You're gonna be better than mine. And that's not what this is about at all. That's a completely irrelevant metric for this exercise. This isn't about making a beautiful finished painting at all. Because we're not judging it like that. It will be a beautiful painting and it will be an experience. It's more of the act of doing it. Then, then having some kind of beautiful finished product. By fine art terms, it's beautiful because it's your own expression. So yes, of course yours will be amazing, yours will be fantastic and you can just sit and enjoy it. Let's see here. I don't think too hard. Again. Maybe there's like there's sort of this bluish color for some clouds, maybe. Giant brush. I switched hands because my hand gets tired. Sometimes. The paint, this is acrylic but it is still a little wet and it might just mix with what you're doing. This is definitely a more of a soft. You can see this is my last piece of watercolor paper on this pad. So it's bulging out. No worries there. Wherever. Maybe there's a little bit of it gets lighter toward the edges here. This is more of a gentle color to peace. Maybe. Maybe right in the center, right where I want it. Maybe my son. The last little light of the day poking through. Maybe I'll take a different palette knife. This is just a regular one. And maybe I'll just come and smash. Painting is about smoking a lot of times anyway. I don't know. Maybe we'll do like a street or whatever. I mean, I'm just going to literally take some dark anything dark colors and maybe this is where your plastic can come in handy. My wrapper, Here's my fittest, right here. This is where I'm going to make, Let's put this away. I actually want to use my piece of plastic. Maybe I'll share some of these with a finger. You have two hands using both. Why not? Yeah, I'm making I don't know, a foreground. I guess. I'm also making a tremendous mess, but that's kind of fun. I'm just really enjoying myself and playing and smashing. Who knows, maybe doing this, you'll discover a new technique that you've never thought of before. That will take your painting to a whole new level. You can use it in a more deliberate fashion. We'll set that aside. Maybe all pretend there's like trees or something here. I don't know. This doesn't look anything like the picture clearly, but it's really fun. I'm having a good time. You make a mess, so no big deal. You just wash up afterward. I love this flattery thing. I'm gonna do that. Just mix them wet, really wet color, splatter, some glow ease onto my son area. Maybe there's some orange. Orange is my favorite color. Yellows, oranges. I like the Ottoman color palette in general. That autumn painting was especially fun for me, the one we did earlier. Maybe some of these. Do you like this? I don't know. You'll catch some other pieces of wet paint. Maybe I want some red and it's maybe more like a pink. Maybe this pink up here. I mean, this isn't happening in my picture. I've actually stopped looking at it. I'll glance at it once in a while from kinda like hot in for an idea or something. But that's not really where I'm going. And this is looking fine already. Maybe I maybe I want to gently take a piece of napkin or something and just like just gently brush my opinion, maybe this is what you're feeling today. You're not feeling the rush. I have to do this a little faster. So that's a video you can watch and it's not like an hour-long. You can take all the time you want. You can just do this for the whole day and just blend and play and let your mind wander. Just think of maybe you'll have a cool revelation about life flight while you're doing this exercise. Some more finger stuff. Maybe I'll take sometimes you can take the stick, the handle on your brush and just like pick up some paint and make all this chunky things, little, little tiny scratching things happen. Little bit of orange. I don't know what's happening here. Sounds like a fun idea. This looks more like a landscape or something like a BCCI scene or something. I don't know. Again, you can see if you can compare the two. You can see where I started. Like they're generally the same idea, but I am not trying to make it look like that picture at all. That departed very quickly. It's a very loose idea of it. But I'm just having fun. I wouldn't call this. There's no cars or houses or clouds, or really it's just colors and shapes. And there's nothing that I'm supposed to do with this. It's just me having fun. Maybe I, maybe I will take a little tiny bit. Maybe I can just enjoy this for a second. Watch you can just slow down and maybe I'll just do some little little cloudy bits. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to let in, as Bob Ross would say it. The Brush Dance and play and have fun. Clouds are about the freezing and nature. Bob Ross. I'm just enjoying this little sunlight moment. Then maybe we'll do some orange. These are all my favorite colors. Just cheap paint on a cheap surface. It could've been cardboard. I don't know where I'm going because we're painting like we just don't care. That is very liberating. I don't care what this looks like. I'm having fun. You feel something I felt like I wanted a little more light right here. I don't know why, but just do it. Let yourself give yourself permission to be spontaneous. Throw yo brushes in a year and paint like you just don't care. You can play with this all day if you want, or you can be done after ten or 15 minutes. Whenever whenever you're feeling it's been out, you can finally just stop and look at it and appreciate this beauty that was just in your head that now you get to look at. And this was just a random moment that was inspirational for me driving around my neighborhood. I just saw a beautiful sunset one day. I can't quite get in there at the very bottom. I'll get that. I guess I could just leave it. I don't know. I just wanted to fill it in, but maybe not. If this was just a random moment. If I snap with my phone, that was a pretty sunset. We all see pretty sensitive. We all see things that are beautiful to us or just evoke emotion. Just take a picture and use it as a guide. Just a little place to start. Just to funnel you. Just a little push to get you moving. And don't hold yourself to the picture very much at all. It's very loose and very free. But sometimes it helps to have something to start with some easy picture. For this, I do recommend easy simple landscapes or subject matter, you know, trying to do a person or an animal, or that might be because those are technically more, it can be more challenging and you might hold yourself to be more detectably accurate. If it's a portrait or a girl making us really sad face. You could play with that. Sure, That can be really exciting. But just be aware that it's not going to look photorealistic at all. And that's okay. This doesn't this is way better than the stupid picture I took. I would weigh more hanging on my wall then I would hang that. This is far more interesting and exciting for me because it's my emotion that really drove this whole thing. Photorealism is that's what the cameras for. The camera captures. Photo realism. You're there to show us your emotions. So even in your, in your regular paintings, I want to see what you feel. I want to see this. I don't want to see an exact replica of the picture you took once. I don't understand why some artists value that as a skill. I don't understand it at all. It's very technically challenging, sure, but kind of boring. Honestly. I'm just playing now. I'm using my finger because it's fun. There's all kinds of textures in here, like paint that didn't catch and paint they got smooshed and scratched. You can let this dry and hit it with sandpaper like just play and you know why? Because this painting is not for sale. Because no one is going to see this painting. You're not going to post it online. Because as soon as you do that, as soon as you think, oh, this would make a great post. And that changes everything about how you approach this. You suddenly are trying to paint for your audience and your followers and not for yourself. As soon as you think, oh, someone might buy this. As soon as you think that that changes everything that you do and use second-guessing yourself in your planning and you're trying to perfect it, and then you're painting for somebody else and not for you. That's not what this exercise is. For. The benefit of this really only happens when you're just like, I don't care. I don't care. This is fun and this is for me. My mirror isn't for the world to see. This is my mirror for me. Then that's how you need to approach this. I recommend. That's what the purpose of this exercise really is. You get it all out. That's lovely. Because you finally get to see yourself maybe for the first time ever. I think that might be all, all the catharsis I can handle for one day. Do big ones, do great giant ones with a huge brush. If you have, if you have the room and the space to make a mess and whatever, you'd do, a little tiny ones if you just like, you'd like to noodle and scratch and if that's your style, do whatever you're happy with. This is a nice, easy, demonstrable, quick version and it's actually still really fun. And I can get all kinds of textures and fun things in here that are happening. Okay. Well, thanks for sharing this therapy moment with me. I'll come back and show all the paintings that we did today. And we'll talk about them and have a little more fun moment exploring. You guys get to see my head right now. That's vulnerable for me, but I hope you guys are enjoying it. So anyway, we'll come back in a second and we'll review all of our piles of me. 6. Summary: Okay, We'll go through all the fun painting exercises we did today. Here's the first one that we did was a picture of some flowers from a friend's garden that just sort of let loose and play with the colors and had a good time and let all those colors out from inside and got really got a good chance to experience. I'll hold it up and turn it a little bit. This is just acrylic on, this is just watercolor paper that I just found a block of in the corner that was just kind of in a pile. This was fun, very spontaneous. Don't overthink it. Very stream of conscious. You see a color, just go for it and throw it on there and you use a lot of paint. Really have fun with it. Here's that one. The next one we did was a fun autumn tree that was from just a picture that I had snapped at my phone walking through a park one day during, during autumn. I love all the yellows and oranges and I really enjoyed those are my favorite colors, Autumns, my favorite season. It was kind of fun metaphorically to play with the concept of the transition between summer, autumn. And you can see there's still some green hanging on there is the portrait he is trying to hang on to the nice bright warm months of summer flowing into the beautiful autumn transition as it's starting to settle down and set alone for a long cold winter nap. I think we've all felt that transition before. And it was kind of fun to experience that in paint and think about that and just let the colors fly. I really just slather the color on here. I'm going to adjust it so that's myosin clear in the camera here. I'll include images of these in the piece. And again, don't use my painting as a reference to copy from. And don't try to reference the picture to copy from. It's really just an idea. Yours will be so much different because you were you and I'm me and we just do different things naturally. So you don't try to do these, they just come out and wherever you are. It happens to come out and that's how it is and it's gonna be amazing, should be really exciting. Then if you wanted to take it a little more somber, we did this piece, moon mood and nighttime sort of seascape. You wanted something a little more calm. Mine at it actually ended up being quite vibrant and crazy coexist. I do have to make these quick so that this can be an, a video that you can watch in a sitting. And I'm painting fast, but feel free to stop it and re-watch it and pause it. And it has many times as you want, you have that luxury. You can take hours on this and just meditate. Just let the colors come out of you and just think about your life and let all the, all the problems that you're having and let them come out onto the canvas and spend, spend some time and really get to know the scene and yourself through every single brushstroke. Let this be your mirror where you finally get to look at yourself and all your, all your crazy wild things are gentle, soft moments. All those things are happening. You get to look at it now. So there's that one. And then finally we did just to end it, this is a nice ending note. We did a nice sunset. This was not a great photo at all. This was just a picture I took with my phone. You probably all got millions of better or better than when I just did for this. But again, it's not about the quality of the image. It was about the feeling that you felt when you were there. The photo sort of helps remind you. It helps give you a little nudge to guide you in a direction, but you can depart from it as much as you want, as early as you want. This is a very loose rendition of that image because it was just a guide. Really. It's about getting the act of actually moving the brush and the canvas and just slinging paint down without any inhibitions or any anyone telling you what you should or shouldn't do. You're not trying to do a painting style. You could say this is very impressionist, but that's not what I'm doing. I'm not painting a style. I'm just being free. I was considering it's sort of a free expressionism because you're really just letting your, letting your at your soul sort of guide your brush and paint your picture that way. You're doing it very unintentionally. Painting like you just don't care. When you have these circuit and sit and look at him and really just mall through your own thoughts as it can be very meditative. And whatever you make is going to be beautiful. It's gonna be unique. No one's ever going to have painted anything like what you just did. You're the first one in the history of the universe to paint the scene just like this. Remember that? Because that's like you hear the first-person first arrangement of molecules and thoughts and experiences that have been exactly like you. These paintings are kind of a reflection of that year chaos and your beauty, and your doubts and your fears and your triumphs. It's all here. Could be very cathartic and you can just breathe and really enjoy it. I hope that was enjoyable. Just play around with it. You know, I had to say, don't post these online for me to critique. That's the first time I've asked that to happen because that's not what this is about. This is there's no critique for this. Keep them for yourself. You can do whatever you want if you love these and you want to give them away as gifts, that's fine. If you do like it and someone wants to buy one, great. If you want to post them online, great, but really, really don't think about that when you're making them just play and have fun. And then when you're done throwing a pile, throw me in the corner and don't look at him for a week, then come back and see which ones maybe you love. Maybe that'll inspire you to make a new, to make another painting that you've never painted before. Maybe it'll inspire you. I loved this moment with this row is, and how it's like twisting and exploding with red color. And you might do a whole new approach to painting florals or whatever it could, it could unlock a lot of stuff for you. Anyway. I'll go through these again real quick. The rows, the autumn tree. These are all 12 by 16s. Just on just crummy paper. I might even do an unlike, just do it on cardboard or something just to show you that it doesn't matter what it's on because it's gonna be fun. And then the sunset. So thank you so much for joining me. This has been a very cathartic experience, therapeutic and all that stuff. So I hope you've learned a lot about yourself and about your art and about all these things. And I always just been really fun and relaxing and enjoying. Happy painting. Do a bunch of these and have a good time. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Christopher Clark and happy painting and I'll see you next time.