When is the last time you dipped a fat brush into a loud red and felt the slow drips roll down a large beckoning piece of stark white paper?

When is the last time you were invited by a seductive rich brown to make slender curvacious lines accompanied by small turquoise dots...and you took the invitation?

When is the last time you allowed yourself to be chosen by a serpent colored green and you played all day together going no place in particular in tender arabesques of line?

Are you ready to discover the JOY OF PAINT?

Have you been feeling a deep longing for some uncomplicated way to just play with color and line and shape? Feeling a soulful longing to dive in to a rich place of knowing deep inside yourself? Do you feel impatient and weighted down by the tedium of techniques and instructions?

Humans are naturally creative beings with a world of rich inner and very individual imagery inside each one of us. When we allow it to emerge by inviting it to the surface of our consciousness we can open up a new way of seeing and being in the world.

About The Process
Process painting uses paint as an elemental tool to take one back to the basics of spontaneous expression and for the individual to engage in a deep (but colorful!) meditation with the inner self. Keeping things simple is the key. Returning again and again to the paint and listening to the non-thinking instinctual voice (aka gut instinct) and back to the paper. To keep returning to the paint and following the guidance and wisdom of the voice that resides there and returning again to the paper and then back to the paint. This delicate cycle evolves into a dialogue between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind-or the intellectual and instinctual selves -- and a deep engagement with the intuitive self begins to emerge. A deeper more immediate communication with the intuitive self can become more sharply honed as we begin to trust and follow this new voice. An inner listening can develop and a reconnection with the intuitive voice. One hears more clearly the voices of the ego-driven mind (the shoulds) and its willful desires and the often unexpected turns that the other inner knowing will take if allowed. It is here, when we allow the intuitive voice to override the voice of the ego-driven mind that we discover the deeply satisfying individuality and mysterious perfection of our deeply creative beings.

What if I’m not an Artist?
This painting class requires no experience and no artistic background, only a willingness to explore wherever your wiser self wishes to take you. This process can be a wonderful useful tool for exploration and self-knowledge. As we begin to trust and follow this new aspect of our selves a deeper more immediate communication with this part can become more sharply honed.

About the Class or Workshop:
Each class or workshop begins with a brief centering meditation. A brief introduction to the materials (first class) is followed by a 1-1/2 to 2 hour painting session depending on the time allowed. The participant is encouraged to choose whatever color has the strongest pull; the same with the brush size. Then the rest is a what comes when those two elements meet at the paper. Certain guidelines will be discussed (see below) at the introduction to help the participant stay with the process and the facilitator is on hand if the painter gets stuck.

Resistance
Resistance is a normal part of this process and no matter how much you have painted you are not immune to this phenonomenon! Often when something is about to happen that may be exciting or scary and or uncomfortable we tend to want to push it away. . . to stop and start fresh; to move away from that potentially uncomfortable subject. This may appear in the form of feelings and sensations. Perhaps an old memory has been triggered, and feelings such as anger or shame or sadness emerge. What if we embraced that feeling by exploring it and staying with it? This is often the most exciting time for the painter; when the energy behind the feeling has been tapped into and there is a sudden rush to paint faster.

There is often something new and insightful that comes as a result of ‘riding the emotional wave’. The painter may come to a new knowledge or insight or perhaps a new peacefulness with an old problem.

Guidelines
These guidelines are established to help the painter to express whatever comes up without fear of being criticized or judged.and alos to establish a feeling of safety in the group.

1. Keep the process with yourself.
Please do not talk about anyone else’s apinting but your own. No comments or exclamations about anyones work in class or out. This helps to quiet the ego -mind.

2. Quiet is encouraged in the studio during painting sessions.
Allow yourself to be with yourself and your own process.

3. Forget your story.
Ones story comes fron the ego- mind. What happens if you allow some other intelligence in you to take charge? What if you allow yourself to a yearning instead of a preconceived idea?

4. Go where the energy is.
Go where the energy is. Whether it be in the form of resisitance or a feeling of heightened energy, what happens if you allow yourself to open the door to something new by following it? What if you let the energy be the guide and you be the follower?

5. Notice tiredness or resistance.
These feelings are teachers. If you stay open to them you may note something else is trying to happen. Frequently there is a desire from the conscious mind to squelch the urge to explore the next passage. Can you sit with these feelings and ask yourself why do I want to stop here? What is trying to emerge at the edge of my being? What if you allowed yourself to paint whatever feeling . . . tiredness, for example. . . or stuckness?

6. Don’t edit by covering over images.
Each image needs to be permitted "beingness”. Ask yourself why do I want to cover oper this image . . . why don’t I like it? What does it say to me? What if I allow it to exist?

7. Wait for a sense of completeness before moving on to a new painting.
Is this the end of the affair? Does something more need to be said?

About the Facilitator

Sarah Pattison has been living in or near the Athens, Georgia area since 1983, and has a BFA in drawing /painting from UGA 1991. She maintains an art practice of her own and has been teaching a variety of art classes and workshops since 1997.

A defining moment occurred in 1992 when she was introduced to Jungian dreamwork. Since that time she has kept dream journals and worked closely with her dreams individually and in local dream groups. In 2002, Sarah attended her first workshop with The Painting Experience with Stewart Cubley (co-author of Life, Paint, and Passion) and knew immediately that the course of her facilitation was taking a new direction. She found that process painting was a very interactive way to work with the part of the self that creates dreams and that the same symbolism and logic applies to both. Since that first workshop, Sarah has worked with Stewart extensively and continues to mentor with him.

Sarah currently teaches and facilitates through the Georgia Center for Professional and Personal Development, The Loran Smith Cancer Support Center, and The Athens Regional Hospital’s Mind Body Institute.All are located in Athens.

"Sarah is a gifted teacher with her gentle wit and creative, playful energy that facilitates similar responses in her students."
Nancy R. Williams, Ph.D.

"You are creating the opportunity for us individually and as a group to find, nurture and allow to bloom our creative, loving, playful self."
Jenna Jainey