What the heck is Intuitive Drawing? Why are you teaching so many workshop about it?
I want to write about this, because this topic is arguably one of the most important to me going into 2025.
There are many reason I'm passionate about creating intuitively, but the one I'm thinking about this month is birthing. Intuitive drawing isn't making in the classical sense. It's a birth. I want to talk about what that means, what the differences are, and why it's a super exciting way to draw.
I've been told by students that my workshop is unlike anything they've done. It's true. It's a very different style of making... while at the same time will feel deeply familiar. Why? Intuitive Drawing at it's core is how you drew as a child. How you drew as a child (or heck, made anything) is in deep communion with something bigger.
What is something bigger?
I like to call this thing "something bigger" because it's important to me that the idea is accessible to all people. That said, everyone has a name they most prefer. Some will call it Spirit. Some, God. Some, the Universe. Some, Allah. Some, Nature.
All of those names have become (for better or worse), loaded with agendas when used in this context. It is not to say that those names aren't beautiful and important. However, in the case of Intuitive Art Making I want to stress you don't have to have a speck of spiritual or religious belief for this to be a deeply meaningful way to create.
Intuitive Drawing is built upon the idea that there is something bigger present when you create. What that thing is specifically, honestly doesn't matter. This frees you up to regard the "something bigger" in the way that is most meaningful to you. Am I making a case that you are "drawing with God?" Yes and No. It depends on you. I'm making a case that this process is a both/and. Just as it's valid when 100 people view a work of art, and they see 100 different things. Same is true for this. Same is true for life. It's an idea that is still challenging for many people, myself included. I do observe however, that to the extent the people and collectives embrace the both/and, is to the same extent of their maturity.
I want to share four general steps for how Intuitive Creation is Born, rather than made. I want to talk about how this has to do with "Something Bigger." If you're still reading this far, I'd suggest you're going to find this valuable in some way. Maybe not necessarily to start a drawing practice. Or maybe you will start one. Maybe not necessarily to create Art at all. Or maybe you will. I suspect as you keep reading, you'll become clear on why this is for you.
1. BEGINNING WITHOUT AN END IN MIND: Intuitive Drawing at it's core is about making without a plan. The intention of making this way, is that a plan often comes from our ego. The ego is an excellent tool in a lot of ways, but it is not a tool for making intuitively with Something Bigger.
Do we need to always make intuitively? Hardly. There are many amazing artists who sit down to their studio table each day intending to create things they know they'll sell. They absolutely have a plan and end in mind. This is creating with your inner adult, and it's a very valid way of creating. Especially if you're paying your bills with what you make.
In contrast, intuitive work is making with your inner kid. If you have an art practice, or want one, but feel like something is "missing" with traditional classes or creation, it might be because you are needing to create with your kid. One way you know that you're kid is the room when you're making stuff, is that your kid does not give a sh** about making money or impressing anyone. Your kid only has one objective... making things with that "Bigger Thing." Why? I'm sure there's many reasons, but the one I want to make a case for in this post is this: Our work here in these human bodies is to create in alignment with Something Bigger. We've already seen what happens when we exclusively create out of alignment with that thing.
Making without an end in mind, gets the ego out of way so your kid and their intuition can come in. One way I teach this in my workshops, is with your non-dominant hand. This process won't be for everyone, but I'm always surprised how MANY people fall in love with the drawings they do this way. They will be messy and rough, but you will most certainly find after doing a series of them, that there a freshness and sincerity you could have never done with your dominant hand. The image on this post was done this way a few months ago. As I sketched this one with my weaker hand, it eased me into the second phase of this process...
2. A FLOW STATE The contemporary concept of flow is most popularly coined and researched by scientist Mihaly Csikszentmihaly. He described flow in many ways, but most simply put: It is a state of such deep immersion in what one is doing, that everything else seems to disappear.
Flow State is also the state in which children make things if they're given the circumstances to do so. Some people reading this might say: My kid never gets into Flow. They can't sit still for more than two seconds. I get that. It might seem that a prerequisite for flow is calm. However, Flow is also often active. In fact, I'd bet children who can't sit still are constantly accessing flow. When Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi studied flow, many of his subjects were athletes, especially ones that did repetitive, strategic, solo movements like rock climbers.
In my opinion, Flow is where we begin to easily commune with Something Bigger. This experience is going to be wildly different for everyone. Rock climbers will often talk about feeling as if they're having a conversation with the mountain. I know I often feel as if my drawings are talking with me.
As I drew this piece, just like we see things in clouds at times, I began to see the face of a woman. There was no baby at that point. Just a face. As I began to see her, I switched to my dominant hand. Using my adult set of technical skills, I pulled the details of her face forward, and added color.
Then she sat in my sketchbook for three months.
A few weeks ago I was cooking to a holiday Spotify list. It shuffled to the Pentatonix version of Mary Did You Know. Seemingly out of "nowhere" this drawing popped into my head. I've been drawing this way for decades now, and when that happens I view this kind of "random" thought as guidance. The final and third phase of Intuitive Drawing comes after this.
3. MAKING MEANING: When I first heard Mary Did You Know with fresh ears, it was in November of 2020. We had found out we were pregnant. I was reflecting on an interesting idea for me at the time: Making Intuitive Art is Like Birthing. Making art within a more capitalistic structure is all creation and monetization. It's a production line mentality with only two phases. Making intuitively is more like a birth, in that there are four phases: Conception, Gestation, Labor (Contraction) and Birth (Expression). This model of making is hard for capitalists, because two of the phases look like "nothing." They are profoundly still on the surface with the artist appearing to be doing no work. The truth is, Conception and Gestation are primarily the realms of Something Bigger. In a society that is largely very skeptical of things we can experience with our five senses, it's not surprising that this model of creation is rarely utilized by working artists.
To me, the lyrics of this song unintentionally toe the line of this idea. f you listen to the lyrics, and substitute "boy" or "child" with "art," the song takes on a wildly important new meaning. We don't just birth humans in these bodies. We birth so many things. Just as our children change us and the world, so do our artworks.
This time of year leads up to the Winter Solstice. It is also in nature, a deep time of contraction. Everything appears dead and quiet, when it's anything but. I think if nature had vocal cords, during the winter we'd here her groan like a woman in labor. Contractions in nature are like contractions in labor. Everything squeezes inward and downward. It is a wildly active time... inside. After all that deep contraction underground in the Winter, the pushing and expression can happen in Spring. Spring is birth. Winter is labor.
When I heard this song the other day, all these ideas sprang forth. I remembered the woman in my sketchbook. I imported her into my tablet and re-drew her digitally. I added a baby in a swaddle. Rather than human form I sketched in something more abstract. I wanted people to feel free to interpret it as a baby, but also as any creation. I changed the palette to represent the brightness of birthing, springing forth in the darkness of contraction.
The Intuitive Drawing was complete.
It was the most intuitive drawing I'd done in years.
Those of you who have followed my work know that I've worked with some very special clients, doing very special things. I designed the mural at the entryway to Dell Children's hospital in Austin. I did a truck wrap for a 20 foot semi for Boston Beer Company. I taught classes at Facebook. I did an interactive coloring mural for Visa's north Austin office.
All of those things mean more to me than you know. They were dreams realized, that no one can every take away from me. Yet drawing those ways pales in comparison to drawing this drawing.
This is how you'll know you're intuitively drawing. It scratches that damn itch so GOOD. You'll know you're making intuitively because it feels so amazing you'd draw, build, create, sing, run, climb that way until the end of time even if no one noticed (let alone paid you.)
That's the work of your kid. That's the work with Something Bigger. Watch any toddler make things and you'll see it in action.
Why does this matter? I believe it matters because our souls' need Intuitive Creation like our bodies need food and water. Unpacking that idea is a topic for another post. For now, I offer this tiny drawing to do you as a reminder that the darkest, coldest, most painful contractions of our lives... always precede the most gigantic births. Whether is a human baby, or an Art Baby. If you are interested in this idea, I did a few podcast episodes about this a few years ago: Art Baby, Art Pregnancy Art Kid, and Making Art with Something Bigger.
An interesting example of this: My Intuitive Drawing workshops are just now gaining traction and filling up. However, I first began creating the root system for it a full 13 years ago! There has been a tremendous amount of contraction as this thing birthed itself.
Birthing 13 year Art babies is exceptionally good for the soul. It is why when my country (and the world) is in the throws of a many generation's long labor process, I am less scared of the pain and contraction. This work reminds me that we're in pain we are doing Intuitive Creation exactly right. We are here to push new things into this world in tandem... not with markets or economies... but with Something Bigger.