When students come to an encaustic workshop with a pre-planned project and high expectations that they will be taking home a fabulous and finished work of art, they often don’t give themselves permission to play and embrace the process of art-making.
Commit to the process, detach from the outcome!!
To help students commit to the process and detach from the outcome, I begin my workshops having students recite the Art-day vow.
My Art-day vow
Put your hand on your heart and repeat after me…
I vow to welcome this day with open arms.
I promise to let go of preconceived notions
of what my day will look like
and what my art will look like.
Today I will listen to my inner creative voice
and with gratitude will accept all outcomes.
Today I promise to myself
and to my new friends,
to bring my best self and
allow it to PLAY all day.
Now high five a neighbour and let’s begin!
Feel free to download this poster to use this in your own art practice and with your students. Attribution is appreciated.
- Give yourself permission to play - February 8, 2019
- Yes, you can use Chalk Paint in place of Encaustic Gesso - August 3, 2018
- Mixed Media Collage as a Foundation for Encaustic Painting - March 25, 2018
Thank you. This post really resonates with me. I’ve been that person with preconceived plans in a class. It’s so much harder to let go and do this than I ever realized. In some ways it’s harder with encaustic b/c while you have the freedom to ay down layers, it also takes a certain amount of faith or courage to do so. And for me it’s also a bit of reversal of process or a need to slow down: “maybe you should have added that image transfer later, after you added more layers…”