![Feeling Free, by Erica Pang | The Painting Experience Blog](https://processarts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/post120.jpg")
We’re happy to offer the following guest post by Vancouver painter and art therapist Erica Pang, who recently attended a Painting Experience workshop on Granville Island. She first posted these reflections on Instagram at @ericapang.art and we couldn’t resist sharing them with you here. Thank you, Erica!
Feeling FREE! I just finished a 3-day workshop on Granville Island with The Painting Experience. As a working artist, I feel a lot of pressure to make sure a painting is perfect. I paint intuitively but there is also a lot of planning involved. Paints are expensive so I never want to waste them and I am usually working on a time constraint. I repaint over images I don’t like and keep painting over until I feel it’s perfect. This weekend, I made a commitment to respect my mark making and not cover up anything.
I started this painting on two pieces of paper. I listened. I got out of my own way and truly let it guide me. It got to a point where the painting needed to grow — so I added one more piece. Eventually the painting grew to six pieces of paper! The images kept coming. And coming. From where? I really don’t know and I don’t need to know. The story kept unfolding through me and I feel like it can still grow.
A revelation I gained during this workshop is that imagination and creativity are limitless and endless. They will keep growing if we allow them. Children have this ability to tap right into creativity and live in it. It brought me back to the Maya Angelou quote:
You can’t use up creativity, the more you use, the more you have.
I always knew this but it wasn’t until this weekend that I experienced it first hand.
Because of the energy held in the workshop space, I was able to open a doorway into pure freedom with paints and brushes in hand.
More Information
You can learn more about Erica and her work by visiting her website at www.ericapang.com. Or look for her on Facebook at facebook.com/ericapangart.
To find our full schedule of upcoming workshops and retreats, check out our Programs page.
