Guest Blog - ‘Uncovering’

Hindu monastic and founder of The Traditional Yoga Association, Swami Ambikananda shares her creative journey, accompanied with her insights on art as a form of meditation. Beginning with drawing portraits at school, through to learning oil painting in her 70's.

Written by, Swami Ambikananda, August 2024.

Drawing: Swami Ambikananda, Laura Truesdale, 2021, Graphite & Chalk on Recycled Paper.

Uncovering

“It is not art in the professionalized sense about which I care, but that which is created sacredly, as a result of a deep inner experience, with all of oneself, and that becomes ‘art’ in time.”

-Alfred Stieglitz 

Art was not a primary topic in the house I grew up in, so I was in my early teens before I discovered the work of Mary Cassatt, the late 18th - early 19th century artist.  A woman who could paint! 

Until that moment, to my teenage mind, art was for eccentric middle-class men born in or near the Left Bank ~ or with aspirations to live there.  It was a discovery that got me visiting our local art gallery in Johannesburg at least once a week to study pieces of art.  I remember still a Gaudi, with its thickly applied paint and astonishing colours ~ almost creating a 3D effect on a flat canvas.

I had played with my pencils and found I could ~ well, sort of ~ reproduce on paper what I was looking at.  I remember well that I enjoyed drawing trees and my pet chameleon more than anything else.  Delightfully, it was a skill that allowed me to earn 50 cents a portrait from my school friends.

Then I grew up and entered the corporate world and before I knew it, I was bringing up children.  My art books were shelved and didn’t emerge again till my children’s teen years when I tentatively started to put pencil to paper again.

I only started using my completely untrained skills again when, much later, I started teaching Yoga and needed to illustrate certain postures and teachings ~ but always with pencil and paper.

Tina, Swami Ambikananda, Oil Pastel on Paper.

Then Laura came into my life and started her art school.  Oils!  She was teaching an oil portraiture class and here I was, in my seventies, thinking of doing it.  Of course I had tried oils before ~ disastrously!  Brushes just didn’t do what pencils did and the paint… oh! heavens… that paint that took forever to dry! I had already decided by the time I reached my mid-sixties that I didn’t have time before I died to wait for its drying process.

But there I was, on the course, and the first lesson was great: how to block off the image on paper so as to reproduce it yourself on another surface. It was a revelation.  I knew immediately this was going to save me many frustrating hours of rubbing out and re-doing.  Then we moved on to applying the actual oils.  So, there I was, sitting on the floor applying this slippery substance to a rough canvas using a brush that seemed to have a mind of its own, trying to recreate an image.  In the midst of the thought, “Oh God, this is impossible!” something magical happened.

Maggie, Swami Ambikananda, Oil Pastel on Paper

My spiritual life ~ the life of the unmeasured, immeasurable self, has been an inner search since I could remember.  I love science and my respect for it has grown as I have.  However, the limited vision of those who would reduce life to an accident in a mechanistic, meaningless universe, in which only the measurable has reality, never sat well with me.  One does not have to reach my old age to realise that not everything in our universe can be controlled and predicted as the reductionist approach asks us to believe.  So that search for the immeasurable had become my primary focus.

As Laura was talking us through the application of the paint her voice calm, but insistent, had my mind and hand trying ~ largely unsuccessfully ~ to work together, when, suddenly, everything went quiet.  A coherence overtook me ~ mind, body and breath all became engaged in the same thing, and a deeply meditative state took over for most of that class.  Her voice and instructions did not disrupt that process ~ it deepened it through the lesson.  Oil painting had become Yoga.

The primary definition of Yoga was given to us by the philosopher and sage Patanjali, and dates back to about 250 BCE:

‘Yoga is the stilling of the movement of thought in consciousness.  Then we know our true reality.  At all other times, we identify with a passing thought.’1

In that ‘stilling of the movement of thought’ one finds oneself in a space, in a state of consciousness, that is both immeasurable and indescribable.  As the flow of thought ceases, one finds oneself going in a single direction as a different and deeper reality begins to reveal itself.

Clair Louisa, Swami Ambikananda, Oil Pastel on Paper.

In the days that followed I finished the portrait Laura had set us as a task for the course, and even liked the end result.  I would love to be able to show it here, but I threw it away ~ as I’ve said: I’m old and have to clear things out.

But it opened a new door for me in my relationship with art. It became part of that search for a deeper and truer reality, part of my Yoga practice, rather than simply a means to an end.

I have done a few portraits again since the course ~ of my spiritual teacher, Swami Venkatesananda, of my favourite singer, Tina Turner, of Maggie Aderin Pocock (an astrophysicist whose deliciously humorous approach always delights me).  I didn’t do them in oils ~ I went to oil pastels, but Laura had given me the courage to work in colour!

Gradually, I got up the nerve to try the portrait of a friend, Clair Louisa.  Something ‘in real life’ if you like.  She is a witty, insightful woman and all of that needed to be reflected on paper.  I have completed the oil pastels portrait of her ~ next comes the oils!  Will let you know how that goes.

And yes, I am definitely going to demand the 50p from her when it’s finished!

Swami Ambikananda

Reference

1.     Patajali Yoga Sutras, verses 2, 3 and 4

Swami Ambikananda

You can find information on The Traditional Yoga Association and Swami Ambikananda by clicking: here

Swami Ambikananda is also the founder of homeless & education charity, MUKTI. For more information, or to take part in their fundraising raffle, click: here

Guest Blog - ‘A Significant Transformation’

Artist and Brushstrokes Alumni, Bill Greenhead shares his experience on his creative journey from Digital Artist to exhibiting Oil Painter following the Beginners Oil Painting Course in 2022.

Written By: Bill Greenhead, May 2024.

I have been a professional illustrator since I was 21 years old, and I continue to work in the field. Now, at 58, my art has undergone a significant transformation, in no small part to Laura’s online lessons.

My career as an artist has led to my work being featured in Mad magazine (UK), Punch, Daily Mirror, The Times, and FHM. Primarily, I have worked in digital formats, using tools like Photoshop and After Effects for animation. However, after our move from Maidstone to Hastings at the tail end of Covid, our family pet dog, Charlie, passed away. He was a beloved part of our family, and I wanted to commemorate his passing in a tangible way - through paint rather than pixels. So, I made a promise to our children that I would paint a portrait of him in oils, a medium I hadn't touched since I was 16.

Still Life ‘2022 Beginners Oil painting Course, Bill Greenhead, 2022, Oil on Canvas Board.

Naturally, I was apprehensive about picking up the brush again after all these years. What if my skills had diminished? Could I do a portrait of our much loved dog and not look ridiculous? I know all to well, there’s a fine line to be trodden here.

Sensing my reservations, my wife and adult children gifted me an online painting course with Laura for my birthday. I admit, I initially cursed them.

Shortly after, I received all the materials in the post from Laura, and a few weeks later, I began painting online with her guidance. Starting with a still life of two apples and a pear, Laura introduced me to various techniques, including thin to fat painting with oils, using a grid, and blocking out dark to light. Over the course of four weeks, I completed the painting, creating something I didn't think I was capable of. It looked good. I was as surprised as anyone.

Charlie, Bill Greenhead, 2022, Oil on Canvas

This experience inspired me and gave me the confidence to tackle painting Charlie's portrait. I applied the lessons Laura had taught, gridded it out to get the proportions correct, sketched it all out in burnt Umber, and coloured it up. Blow me, it looked great and the children loved it! What a relief! From there, I immersed myself in painting landscapes of Hastings and St. Leonards, finding inspiration in the dynamic skies and seas of the area. Taking thousands of photos much to my wife's annoyance, 40% of those being seagulls.

Seagulls rule.

Stone Seagull Shadow, Bill Greenhead, 2023, Oil on Canvas

The move to Hastings was also a large reason I needed to paint. You see, I have fallen in love with the sea here. It has inspired me and is a factor in this journey I accidentally found myself on. The seaside fills me with joy and it’s something I feel I need to share.

Looking back on my career, I think it was the fact that I really didn’t feel like I was an artist. If I am honest with myself, I knew I had talent. I am a pretty good cartoonist and can replicate most drawing styles. I have worked in the advertising, publishing space for decades. There was something missing which I couldn’t put my finger on. The craft of generating something you see and converting that image from your mind to a canvas for other people to enjoy hadn’t really occurred to me until I revisited oils. Oil painting wasn’t a job, I wasn’t following a brief, I was creating art to share with the world on my terms. Working with paint, rather than choosing a colour on a digital swatch wheel feels more earned somehow. That’s not to say I am disparaging digital artists. I am one. There is something that feels more like alchemy when you mix and work a colour on a palette. A feeling I was ignorant of, or forgot about until I jumped in and started painting again.

It also informs my digital work. Which is a nice bonus.

Clouds II, Bill Greenhead, 2022, Oil on Canvas

My first paintings have been an exploration of Hastings and the countryside around. I am very interested in learning what the medium can do, and to explore the myriad of colours in the sea and the sky. You see more shades of colour as you continue to paint and therefore see more as you look.

I have taken part in a few exhibitions. It’s been wonderful to meet complete strangers who tell me what they see in my work. I had a lady in tears telling me about how her husband painted landscapes and how my work reminded her of him. It made her very happy. That cannot be bought.

Pier Edge, Bill Greenhead, 2023, Oil on Canvas

Two years later on this journey, I have started to sell my art, with my own exhibitions and prints and greeting cards available in local shops. Now, I am beginning to experiment further, incorporating my love of cartoons and modern art culture into my work. A fun phase if you will. Stemming from the confidence I am beginning to gain from using oils. I have started painting on driftwood and using gold leaf for some work, which I am calling “My Holy Seagull Period”.

Holy Seagull, Bill Greenhead, 2024, Oil on Canvas

I couldn't have embarked on this journey without Laura’s amazing course. She was the perfect teacher, and for that, I thank her from the bottom of my heart.

Bill Greenhead

You can find my work at www.billgreenheadart.com my Instagram is @bill.greenheadart and if you would like to see my animation it’s a www.stikanimation.com or www.funecards.co.uk

Who You Looking At?, Bill Greenhead, 2023, Oil on Canvas

Guest Blog - ‘Changing Your Creative Direction’

Thinking of changing or developing your artistic practice? Artist and former Brushstrokes Courses’ student, Steven Trevillion shares his experience on changing his direction as an abstract painter to a portrait artist following on from our 2021 Beginners Portrait Course.

Written By: Steven Trevillion, March 2022.

It was just after Christmas 2020 that everything changed for me. Until then, if anyone had asked, I would have said that I was an abstract artist working mainly with collage and mixed media through processes dictated largely through random events.

Starting with large-scale abstract paintings I had spent the last ten years slowly developing my own vision and approach to art. Over that time there had been changes but they could all be seen as logical developments from what had gone before. While my art had never been wildly popular, I had had some modest success with group and solo exhibitions in both London and Cumbria (where I moved in 2016), and the work had sold steadily if not in any great quantity.

New Worlds Old News, Steven Trevillion, 2013, acrylic and collage on wood, 61 x 91cm.

Why things changed so suddenly I still do not know. What I do know is that the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated lockdowns caused my creative juices to dry up. I found I could not motivate myself to do any more of my mixed media work, even though I had just had a successful solo exhibition at a local gallery.

In order to make something (anything!) happen I decided to try something new. I thought that if I took myself completely out of my comfort zone, I might start to be able to work again. It was in this spirit that I decided to do Laura’s online portraiture course. But the whole experience did much more for me than that.

William Dafoe - Week 3, Vincent Van Gogh Task for Brushstrokes Courses ‘2021 Beginners Portrait Course’, Steven Trevillion, 2021, Watercolour Pencils on Paper.

Laura turned out to be an inspiring teacher. I enjoyed the whole process of starting again as a beginner, and to my surprise I discovered that I was starting to really enjoy both the online sessions and Laura’s ‘homework’. Soon I began to realise I was making significant progress in this new world of portrait painting.

I spent more and more time in the studio trying to put into practice what I had learnt and gradually began to find my own way of working. I followed up the ‘beginners’ course with a series of online tutorials which helped me to develop a specific oil portrait through the various stages that Laura helped me to identify.

Portrait, Steven Trevillion, 2021, Acrylic on board, 60 x 40 cm

After that, I began to work on my own across a range of different media and I have not looked back. I have just completed a large self-portrait which I think is my best work so far and I intend to go on to do more like this in the future.

What continues to fascinate me about portraiture is the possibility it offers of engaging in a prolonged meditation on what it means to be a unique human being, an experience which I try to communicate to anyone looking at the finished artwork.

Self-Portrait, Steven Trevillion, 2022, oil paint on canvas, 70 x 80 cm.

It is always hard to draw lessons from one person’s experience relevant to other people, but if I was going to draw one it would be that you can always change what you do. It is never too late.

Steven Trevillion

To find out more about Steven Trevillion, see more of his artwork or keep up-to-date with his work & exhibitions, use the link below to visit his website: