Mindfulness

May 20, 2021 | Design Elements & Principles with Steve Puttrich

What is mindfulness?
For artists, this skill is essential. Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress, fear or distraction. Art made in a mindful state is by far more pleasurable and compelling. Artists often refer to this as being in the zone.
One way to get good at mindfulness is to practice it when you’re not at the easel. To “paint” without painting, if you will. Our brains really don’t know the difference between imaginative shape making and actually mixing and applying paint. Now, it’s always better to build that brain / hand / eye coordination whenever you can. So, when you have a few minutes of downtime, practice the fine art of creative mindfulness. This creative mind play is an amazing skill to develop. You can use it wherever you are. And when it comes to actually painting with real pigments, all that playtime will be counted as legitimate brush miles. Your physical results will prove this works.
Here are my top 12 questions to help me practice mindfulness either at the easel or away.
12 Questions to ask to grow mindfulness:
1. Is my head in the game? Am I present 100% for this time? Pay attention. It’s hard to slow down. Take the time to experience your environment with all of your senses — touch, sound, sight, smell, and taste.
2. Live in this moment. Intentionally bring an open and accepting attention to everything.
3. How’s my breathing? Slow, deep, and deliberate is best.
4. Gratitude: Practice it. Say often, “I get to do this!” instead of, “I have to do this.”
5. As a Child, choose joy in finding and discovery. Gamify it. Think, hide and seek or capture the flag.
6. Where’s the story that needs to be told? This will increase your Intent and your WHY!
7. Where are the connections? This will aid in making good Design choices.
8. What’s the emotion here? Where’s my fear? Where’s my courage? Where’s the compassion, where’s the Love? This is a hard one for some, but answers will help create meaningful mark-making movements that represent these emotions. This will make your paintings come alive!!!
9. Where is my hero? Help in selecting a center of interest.
10. Where are the patterns, rhythm, movement? How are these linked to my emotions?
11. Values: Where are they; do they help tell my story?
12. Temperature: Where are my cools and my warms? How do these temperatures connect with each other?
Answers to one or many of these questions connects us as artists to our scene and our scenes to us. When you have your mind fully in the game, it is nearly impossible not to create meaningful work.

This painting is hauntingly beautiful. It uses very elegant diagonal lines that depict growth and movement. So soft and subtle, and reflective of the graceful building herself. His three big shapes are the design. Sky, Building, and Trees, all at a beautifully gentle two point perspective. Richard was mindful of this building’s story. His soft treatment of her values presents the building almost as a ghost – it’s barely there. When you squint, the building simply blends into the sky value. His careful placement of smaller shapes in the trees at street level brings a harmony to the painting. The animation of birds brings life to this piece. Or these could be representative of playful spirits hanging around. He’s given us just enough detail to complete the story ourselves. One must feel this painting just as much as look at it to really connect to the countless stories it reveals. Well done, Richard.

Richard Laurent’s Pink Lady, 12 x 16 oil