Playing with Neurographic Art, SO MUCH FUN!

See if you can spot the pointed part that I missed.
I went back and corrected it, lol.
(You can click on the images to make them larger.)

One of my friends recently taught me (thank you Sandy!) about a concept called Neurographic Art, as defined by Pavel Piskarev in 2014. Last night I checked out the videos on YouTube - wow so fun, and all so different! So I decided to play with it today for lots of reasons, partly to "warm up my hands" in preparation for doing the illustrations for my first children's book, and also because it has developed a wonderful reputation for creating a calm, relaxed state (which art does anyway), and for helping to heal various challenges in the body (which relaxation does anyway). WOOT! It is SO MUCH FUN!! Just playin'. Yes, this is GREAT to do with kids of all ages! And yes, I've already broken some of the rules, HA! Well there aren't very many - much of the literature around it hasn't yet been translated and the basics do vary according to who is teaching it, so I figured it's okay to just have fun. I'm going out tomorrow (yay) and MUST make myself go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight and NOT stay up all night painting it, will just have to look forward to it after I get home! I'm always happiest when I know there's a fun project waiting for me whatever I'm doing when I'm away from the studio.

Almost the beginning of the process.

I wish I'd taken a photo of the lines themselves before adding the rounding and other details, but I forgot. This is a fun activity because I can sit on the porch in a spankin' wet bathing suit and play away! After I'd done some initial circles and lines, I spent time rounding all the pointed angles (one of the "rules" of neurographic art), then one of the circles called to me to make it a beautiful face, so I did. I kept on going, and could see other things appearing in the lines and shapes just as they were, so enhanced them. She's turning into a lovely pregnant woman who's taking a nap and dreaming with her baby.

A little bit further along...

I added what I call "soul stars" and spirals and a bit of love in the little hearts. Also drew her feet, which are curled up while she naps.

A little more doodling, this is fun!

She let me know she's wearing her yoga pants with her lovely pink tunic and that she reeeeally loves the baby, so I added all that in. The baby has the spiritual spiral and so does her mother, baby within its whole belly since it's an ancient spirit coming into a brand new body, and mom in her third eye, from which she dreams and meditates and receives spiritual guidance.

All the lines and black and white are done!

One of the last steps was creating balance, so I worked around putting in the dark parts, balancing the flowers and kitty let me know he'd like more detail so we can see him. I like to pretend those two spirals next to kitty are the yarn he likes to play with when he's not snoozing. Next step is to begin adding some COLOR! WOOT!! The whole thing is very "retro." Why fight it? It's what was already there from the beginning, just needed a few nudges to pop right out!

Color starting to happen!

I might have to go back over some of the black because the gouache fades it out a bit, so that might be one of the final steps once I'm finished with the painting.

Yep, I did go over the black designs in her yoga pants and some other parts too. Now starting to work on the background, which I think of as a soft quilt underneath her. Bringing in some balance with darker colors. Sat looking at those white spaces and asked them, "What do you want to be?" Then I listened, and they told me.

And now most of it is done except for the skin tones which are always scary to me, but I won't put them in until after I test them first on a scrap piece of the same kind of paper.

It's like a little message to trust and keep going to see this little heart shape on my paper towel after I've wiped my brush I used to mix skin tone on it.

Now her face presents a challenge. Her cheeks are too pale for the rest of the painting but going over them takes patience. WAIT for the skin tone to dry! WAIT! WAIT! NOT YET! So I went and tidied up the kitchen and came back....Okay, now you can do that.

So her little cheeks are nice and rosy and her hair, which also presented a challenge because it's black, has some pretty highlights. I also gave the baby a mouth after practicing on the scrap paper, and spent a bit of time going over some of the blacks to make sure they're nice and dark. 

And now I can feel that it's done. So I took the brushes and palettes and water holders into the kitchen and cleaned them up. And of course after I looked at it a while I found one more pointed area I forgot to round off, so I did that. Lol. Never perfect, but good is good enough, right?!

I'm superstitious about my paper towels that I use while I'm painting. I never throw the one away that I'm using until I'm onto the next project. And I've used the same water containers for years and years and years. Classico organic spaghetti sauce. Before that, years ago I had a special green shirt that I had to wear when I drew or painted. I grew out of that one, but not the other superstitions, lol. What superstitions do you have around your artwork? 

Tip for you - I LOVE to use the porcelain palettes because they clean up really well after using acrylic gouache. All ready for the next time!

And I have a ton of brushes, but this time tried out the Winsor and Newton Series 7 ones that are fairly soft compared to my old favorites that have a lot more bounce. I really like how these performed so will use them for the children's book.

I totally encourage you to play with Neurographic art, however it feels FUN for you. You can use plain old black and white, or color in with markers or colored pencils or whatever feels good! Give yourself permission to play, we all can benefit from this kind of activity.

I think it would be LOADS of fun to do a sip and play party at some point, maybe out by the pool with a few peeps who might enjoy this activity My patio table seats six! Let me know in the comments if you'd be interested. You don't have to finish the whole thing but it was actually pretty surprising that it didn't take hardly any time at all, maybe three hours all in all to draw and another few hours to color and go over some of the black. A really nice couple of evenings....

All the joys to you!

Namaste,

~Jen