How to make mindfulness colorful

Mindful meditation is part of the eightfold path, fourth noble truth of the Dharma taught by the Buddha to his disciples. To make things simple it’s all about training yourself to develop awareness of the present moment and the thoughts, feelings and sensations you encounter in that very instant. Add to that the will to avoid judging and you’re almost there.

Creativity and especially painting has many different definitions. For most people a good painter has to be able to represent as closely as possible the landscape, objects or people surrounding him. To others art is the realm of total freedom where just about everything is possible as long as there’s an artistic process going on. In the early 20th century people like Franz Marc and Kandinsky started to take a closer look at colors. For Kandinsky they had the capacity to touch our soul and to create a vibration directly linked to our emotions. Later artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Mark Rothko and many more freed colors from the limits of figurative representation.

Colors became a means of expression all by themselves. And since their emotional impact is generally admitted by most psychologists, it seems logical to use them to express or experience emotions. Here is how :

In the following example you can see how things evolve and mature when these few rules are applied :

The complete process is visible on YouTube : https://youtu.be/HWYBOHO0EbQ

As you can see the process is going through many stages. The choices of colors, composition and gestures should stay intuitive as much as possible. That supposes a permanent effort for mindfulness through the awareness of the presence of automatic thoughts and emotions. It may be wise and helpful to intentionally cover a zone if judgmental elements arise and limit the natural flow of intuition. All through the entire creative activity the question of the emotional impact needs to be present since it is what guides the painter.

Little by little a composition appears and creates that emotional answer to the act of painting. Here’s the result of one of these working sessions :

What makes this a meditative therapy ?

This type of intuitive painting, freed of judgment and without an initial aim to reach, has many therapeutic effects :

Namaste

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