The Painting Experience
Where the act of creating is more important than the outcome...
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Listen to Stewart Cubley explore the potential of the emerging field of process arts.
It’s more than creativity. It’s transformation. ~ Gail Baker
The Painting Experience is supported by a vital community of past and present painters. Visit our blog to experience the results of painting for process.
The Method is Play....The Potential is Freedom
The Principles of Process Arts
An online course for professionals working in process-oriented learning environments, as well as individuals wishing to deepen their experience of process painting.
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Life, Paint & Passion
Stewart Cubley is coauthor of the highly acclaimed book Life, Paint & Passion: Reclaiming the Magic of Spontaneous Expression.
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Coming Soon!
This memoir is about the quest for the sacred in nature – both human and wild. It’s the first-hand account of a search for personal authenticity and liberation in the silence, solitude, and vast expanses of Alaska’s great interior. It’s also a record of the journey back again into the communal wilderness of the modern collective psyche and the quest to establish a connection through the shared experience of creative painting.
The sacred, as described here, is that which is uncultivated and without motive, a dimension untamed by human ambition, greed, or the need for control. A landscape that’s never been disrespected, where nature still runs free and undiminished, is a holder of this legacy, to be sure. But an equally great wildness lies within the human heart and imagination, a territory intimately close yet forever unapproachable by the civilized habits of thought and time.
Click to receive updates on the book’s availability.
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The Painting Experience
Empowering people to lead more courageous and meaningful lives through the practice of process arts.
Explore the Process
Process painting makes the experience of painting more important than the outcome. When the pressures to perform, produce or succeed are removed, magic happens.
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The Painting Experience is an opportunity to embark on the greatest of all human adventures—embracing your own path and confidently following it.
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The process painting workshops are for educators, counselors, artists, activists, meditators and mavericks. No prior art experience or training is necessary – only your willingness to explore.
The Painting Experience Process
In these process painting workshops, you’ll be given the support to:
- Discover a creative voice that’s entirely your own
- Trust your intuitive perception, not the mind’s critical chatter
- Follow your energy rather than what looks good or makes sense
- Overcome blocks by embracing their hidden message
- Experience your imagination as intelligent – a doorway to deeper knowing
- Explore process painting as a genuine path to spiritual awakening<
Step inside a workshop and experience beginner’s mind!
Programs
Online Courses
An In-Depth Dive
Online Classes
Paint from Home
Personal Mentoring
Creativity Coaching
The Community
The Painting Experience has grown from modest beginnings in 1976 to many thousands of painters worldwide today. The community is a diverse group of individuals that value the creative process and recognize it as central to a fulfilling life. Participation in the community takes many forms:
- Periodically attending Workshops and Retreats
- Joining Online Courses
- Keeping active on The Painting Experience Blog
- And now, for an increasing number of people, discovering the joy of becoming a process arts facilitator.
We hope you’ll find the level of involvement that feels right to you, and we welcome you to the rich discussions and in-depth experiences that await you within The Painting Experience Community.
Latest Posts
A Guiding Principle
An excerpt from Stewart’s forthcoming book: The Sacred and The Wild
Painting Our Way Through It
This guest post by Suzanne Campise, MDiv, is an excerpt from a sermon she preached at the Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church in Pearl River, NY, shortly after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. In this excerpt, lightly edited for our blog, she...
Process Painting Can’t Be Categorized
Stewart hosted his first fully online painting weekend earlier this month. How exciting to have people join from all over the world! Participants "arrived" from Argentina, Brazil, India, Switzerland, British Columbia, and across the United States. Even some wild time...
Creating a Painting Space in a Small Rental Apartment
In today's post, Judy gives us a tour of the painting space she carved out in her small Philadelphia apartment. It's another great example of finding simple solutions to stay creatively connected while staying at home. I live in a rental. It’s a small space and I have...
What is Process Painting?
Some people speak of a sudden event that forever alters the way in which they perceive the world, including who they are in it. Others seek out extreme situations that tax their bodies and minds in order to break down and hopefully break free. But for most of us the journey home is a series of close approaches to and seeming retreats from the unfathomable mystery held within our own present experience.
The opportunity that process painting offers is to fully inhabit the moment right now just as it is. It’s a practice that requires us to drop the insane rush toward the imagined goal and to discover being at home with ourselves. The transformation that occurs when we touch our creative essence is nothing short of miraculous. There’s an expansiveness in which the circumstances of our lives are held differently, and our world appears in its potential rather than it’s limitation. For a moment at least, we perceive the incredible mystery of existence, and we know what it means to accept our place in the scheme of things.
There is no formula by which the creative impulse will manifest in any individual’s life, but its birth requires a clear environment for exploration. First, there needs to be a safe, supportive space in which we can begin to escape the tyranny of expectation and let down the defenses we’ve erected around our own deep listening. Next is the courage to look at those areas where we’re challenged, to stand our ground when we come to the edge. And then there’s the integration, where we set down the brush and take up the task of living. For the painting process is but a metaphor, its purpose is to lift us beyond the palette and to meet our lives with fresh eyes.
~ Stewart Cubley
COVID – 19 UPDATE
ON-SITE EVENTS
The Painting Experience on-site workshops and retreats. We will resume hosting in-person workshops and retreats as soon as it’s safe to do so.
ONLINE EVENTS
We have a robust schedule of online painting classes and online weekend workshops as well as our popular online course, The Principles of Process Arts and The Art of Facilitating. Stay tuned for other opportunities coming soon.
To support you in the transition to online painting, here’s a link to the blog post Getting Ready To Paint At Home.
Please stay safe and do not hesitate to reach out to us by email at office@processarts.com.
Stewart Cubley & The Painting Experience Staff