Help, there's an Elephant on my Blog

Molly Tries Intuitive Painting...He he!  (It's fun!)

It's an Elephant!

So this is my first Assignment for Hali Karla's class "Imagine You" with the 21 Secrets Art Journaling Course.  You can find the lovely Hali at her excellent Blog:

 I think this is one of my hardest assignments so far- even though it doesn't look it!

We had to do "Intuitive" painting. Ok, for those of you who just said "huh?" ...I did the same thing!! 

 This gal took out 6 pieces of unrelated background papers and then proceeded to splash, dab, draw, spill and smear paint all over each of them- going quickly from one to the next!  Seriously!  Not only did she go too fast to really think about anything...she encouraged it! (The not thinking part that is!)  This is supposed to bypass the critical mind and let the creative/emotional part take over.  My response was an eye brow raised "hmmmmmm...."

Ok- so I am an analytical, goal oriented, outcome oriented, "tell-me-how-to-do-it-so-I-can-do-it-right" kind of person so this was VERY difficult for me. Needless to say the Lord has been having me look at my current 'Stress Coping Mechanisms' and has said "Ya, How's that working for you?"....So I took the hint and dove in even when I didn't see anything 'appear' in my 'paintings'.

Hali is an amazing gal, so gentle, so kind, she know's that she's dealing with some of us stoics and is so patient.  But I tell you I was a bit intimidated when she looked back at her 'no-thinking' paintings and found faces, 5 Japanese men, creatures, animals, symbols, doorways, portals, canoes etc.  She painted those in to make them stand out and   THEN, she cut them all up, stuck them on a new background and made a breathtaking scene out of it...Yikes!!  I looked at my paint puddles and any animals in there had already drown!

These are my 'intuitive' paintings...I had already cut out the Elephant though..

So, I let my 'paintings' sit for a day or two and kept coming back to them...and LO AND BEHOLD....if I didn't find an elephant....seriously...an elephant.   Go ahead and psychoanalyze all you want- I have no idea how it happened or what it means, there it is up top!  I just had the head- with the two ears.  I added the eye and then let that sit and stare at me for a day.

So the rest of the body came from necessity as I have really no idea how to draw an elephant.  So I looked at the rest of the elephant paper and lo and behold...the legs and ear were there...with just a little coaxing.  The body is a map from a magazine that happened to have just the right colors and I added a few of my hoarded magazine images...and vwaalaaaaahhh!  An elephant....it's as much as a suprise to me as it is you...trust me!

This was kind of special for me as this week had been one of the MOST stressful I've had in a long time and I just needed some 'Whimsy' and 'Lightness'.  I was coveting all the gals who could draw cute little fluffy story-tale animals and was drooling over my friend Dee Dee Butler's whimsical fairy and dragon drawings and wishing I could do something like it.  And the Lord let me have an Elephant!!  His ways are truly mysterious!

Hope you had some fun and are encouraged to just be silly- draw a squiggle and make an elephant.  Let it add some "Whimsy and Frolic" to your day! 

Here's one of Dee Dee's drawings for you to visit and frolic in!

I know right?!  Love it!