Creativity in art can be a challenging concept. But there are lots of things you can do away from the easel to get started. When I want to delve deeper into something, I like to find people to help me. So I asked Claire Ottewell, a medical intuitive and holistic healer, to give me some tips about unleashing my inner creative with essential oils.

Working as an intuitive artist, my paintings follow a process. While I’m never sure what they will contain in terms of either subject or symbolism, the image and its accompanying narrative emerges as I paint.

In this guest artist ‘female focus’ blog, I ask Swedish artist Lilly Andréasson about Vedic art. Lilly’s work in this field is fascinating to me, as I have practiced Vedic meditation and yoga for many years. I’m also drawn to contemplative processes. I’ll let Lilly tell you the rest…

Intuitive painting is a method of creating art that aims to explore and uncover aspects of the inner self. It is is suited to beginning artists, and to advanced painters. The goal is not to learn specific techniques, produce a body or work or develop a commercially viable style.

When I was first getting really serious about painting, I had several very ‘serious’ ideas about what constituted real art. I thought I should be painting from life rather than using photographs for reference. And I felt like I should be painting representational art; paintings that depicted scenes, still life or other things from the real world.

Intuitive art is a process of connection in which the art leads the way. It steps away from head-based questions, building the painting from the heart. This doesn’t mean it’s random. I carefully consider each element of a painting as it develops. What it does mean is that when I start with one idea, the painting quite frequently takes an unexpected turn.