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Intuitive Painting in Home: Part 3

Dr. Pinkie Feinstein

Chapter 1: What Is Intuitive Painting?

Welcome to the third stage of the Intuitive Painting journey, Acrylic on Canvas.
In many ways, everything we have done so far has been a preparation for this point. All the previous stages were designed to bring us to a place where we can feel ready to work with acrylic alone, equipped with tools, skills, and above all, an emotional maturity that allows us to create with freedom and ease.

Acrylic is a powerful material. Without proper emotional preparation, it can easily turn the intuitive process into something frustrating, heavy, and at times even embarrassing. But when we arrive at it in the right way, it becomes an ideal material, truly perfect for intuitive painting.

Acrylic is far preferable to oil paints for intuitive work. Oil colors are more rigid, they require long processing and do not support free flow. Acrylic, in contrast, dries quickly and allows movement, play, layers, and an ongoing dialogue with the canvas.

In this stage we work with a stretched canvas in a relatively fixed size, preferably 60×90 cm. You can also work with 60×80 or 70×100, but this is more or less the ideal format. As you practice more and go deeper into the work, you can expand the size of the canvas. A larger canvas gives a feeling of expansion, a wider field of expression, and more room to tell your personal story.

This is the first lesson out of twelve lessons in intuitive acrylic painting on canvas.
After going through this series, you can continue to practice intuitively on your own, because this is actually the true home of the method. Here, endless possibilities of expression open up, new emotional layers are revealed, and the creative consciousness is invited to act fully.

The first lesson returns to the fundamental question: What is Intuitive Painting?
In the context of acrylic on canvas, the answer this time is clearer than ever, intuitive painting is a place of freedom.

Freedom can certainly be a kind of vacation, a break from pressure, judgment, and expectations. But it is also much more than that. True freedom is a space of expression, a place where desire and expression meet. It is the place where I am connected to what I feel and can bring it into form.

For me, intuitive painting is the place where I can be free, where I can be myself, fully. The more I practice, the more confident I feel with the technique and with the acrylic, the more my creative freedom grows.

Before we move on to the practical instructions, I invite you to pause for a moment and reflect on your relationship with the word freedom.

In which areas of my life do I feel free and open, close to my passions?
And in which areas do I feel confined, fixed, overly careful, afraid of making mistakes?
Where do I repeat myself, walk only on the safe path?

These are signs of places where my inner freedom is more limited.

Intuitive painting is also a space for emotional training, a practice in being in places that are hard for us to be in during daily life. Each painting is an emotional exercise that prepares the ground for change.

Working With Acrylic on Canvas

First of all, do not dilute the paint with water.
We use a water container only for rinsing the brush when moving from color to color, and then dry the brush with a cloth.

The paints themselves should be of good quality, not old or too stiff, and not overly liquid. It is better to work with acrylics that come in jars rather than in very runny squeeze bottles.

Use a simple, medium sized brush.
The total working time is about 45 minutes.
We work in three full layers, and in each layer we cover the entire canvas.

Painting Instructions, Lesson 1: What Is Intuitive Painting?

First layer – the layer of freedom
This is the layer of acquaintance and practice. Choose colors you feel drawn to, put on music that you love, and begin spreading a thin layer of paint.

Play with the movement, let the brush travel across the canvas. Fill it completely, until no empty space remains. Notice that at first the canvas absorbs the paint and does not fill easily, do not be alarmed, simply continue to work until the whole surface is covered.
Keep this layer thin so that it will dry quickly.

Second layer – four versions of freedom
After the first layer is dry to the touch, divide the canvas into four parts.

In each part, choose three different colors and express your personal feeling of the word freedom.
Four different versions, four different freedoms.

Notice how each combination of three colors creates a different emotion, a different energy, a different meaning.

Third layer – absolute freedom and inner prison
Now divide the canvas into two equal halves.

On one side, hold the title in your mind, “Absolute Freedom”, and paint using only three colors, black, white, and red.

On the other side, “Prison, closure, stagnation”, and here paint with eight colors of your choice.

Allow both sides to exist together on the same canvas, freedom and prison, release and stagnation, expansion and contraction.

The entire work takes about 45 minutes, but there is no need to be exact.
If it takes forty or fifty minutes, that is perfectly fine.
If you feel that you are working too fast, slow down and stay longer with each layer.

This is a lively, exciting stage, the beginning of the new journey with acrylic alone.
Remember to put on music, let the body relax, and feel the movement.

If it is difficult at first, do not worry, that is natural. With time, you will discover that working with acrylic on canvas is a great pleasure, full of freedom, power, and magic.

Chapter 2: Emotional Transformation

Intuitive Painting, Stage Three, Acrylic on Canvas. We have arrived at a stage where we are already “big children,” but the invitation is to remain children at heart. This is essential, especially here. In intuitive painting we give power to the inner child and work alongside it, with it, and through it.

At the same time, as we progress, we also become slightly more mature. We develop the emotional capacity to contain our own energy, to hold our creative energy without collapsing under it, and to work איתה באופן חופשי. There is less self criticism, more willingness to play, more courage to bring in “wrong colors,” to make mistakes, to explore. We become big children. And this is the second lesson in a twelve lesson recorded series for acrylic on canvas.

And I want to emphasize something important: the work does not end after these twelve lessons. This is only the beginning. What we learn here is meant to continue and become a steady tool for self healing, for expanding creativity, for increasing joy, for coping with emotional pain, and for many other gifts that intuitive painting can offer. Lesson two explores the concept of Emotional Transformation, which in many ways can be seen as one of the core reasons intuitive painting even exists, although of course there are many other reasons as well. Intuitive painting is a wonderful tool, but it is never the only or exclusive tool for emotional transformation.

I emphasize this because intuitive painting happens alongside life. We step away from life for a moment and go into a space where we project our experiences onto the canvas and work with them in a kind of emotional laboratory. But life itself will still await us afterward. We will return more relaxed, more free, more balanced, but there will still be emotional processes that require transformation through additional ways: through behavior, through relationships, through choices. Intuitive painting gives us the foundation, the possibility, and the chance. Often, it is the first place where we truly discover that emotional transformation is possible.

In acrylic on canvas this becomes even clearer. Without the earlier stages, the dry pastel work and the panda acrylic stage, it is very possible that we would not yet be able to create emotional transformation using acrylic on canvas. But now that we have learned to work both intensely and gently, explosively and precisely, instinctively and mindfully, now that we have trained our masculine energy and our feminine energy, released, struggled, expressed ugliness and pain, learned softness and accuracy, we are ready. Now we can use acrylic on canvas for emotional transformation.

So what is emotional transformation? Transformation means that matter changes from one form to another. But in our context it goes even further. It is like a cocoon becoming a butterfly. A change of form that releases energy. Something good happens when a form changes. It is not just a random shift. Emotion is a type of energy, a type of substance. Every emotion has weight, power, influence. We feel it inside us. And we also feel the instinctive need to do something with it: speak it, cry it, laugh it, run with it. Emotion contains energy that wishes to move.

My belief is that emotion is essentially a state or energetic form of ourselves that is meant to experience transformation, to move toward a new expression. The energy is not meant to stagnate but to transform, to be used, to nourish our growth. Emotional transformation through intuitive painting means that the painting allows us to express our inner emotional world and move with it to a new form. When that happens, energy is released, and we feel better.

It is important to distinguish between transformation and discharge. Discharge means releasing everything outward, expressing it, throwing it out of ourselves. Transformation means that the energy of the difficult emotion stays with us, but changes form and becomes nourishing, uplifting, and strengthening. I gain something from my anger. I gain something from my sadness. I gain something from my fear. These emotions shift from stuck, anxious energy to energy of growth, expression, creativity, and renewal.

This is the essence of emotional transformation and one of the great gifts of intuitive painting. When we arrive at intuitive painting and practice it correctly, according to the structure, the timing, the layers, and especially with decreasing self criticism, transformation happens naturally. We do not need to force it. We do not need to try. The painting itself does the work with us. The moment we stay with the process and continue creating, the emotions will arise, and by continuing to work afterward, they will transform. They will move, shift, soften, or release. This happens especially when we remain open to change, to playfulness, to avoiding emotional stagnation, and instead continue to move with the colors, the forms, the changing shapes. The transformation happens by itself. What a joy.

Now we continue, just like before. Three layers. Later on, we will advance to more layers, but for now we remain עם אותו המבנה.

Layer One should be relatively thin so it dries quickly. It is free, open, expressive. Bring as many feelings as possible into this layer. Ask yourself: What do I feel right now? Which colors represent what I feel? After one color appears, ask again: What is the next color that represents how I feel now? Listen to your body. Feel the accumulation of emotions and bring them to the canvas.

Layer Two focuses on the transformation itself. Divide the canvas into four sections. In the first section, paint freely using three colors. In the three remaining sections, paint the same image again, but each time with a change in color and form. The first version is the base. The second shifts a little. The third shifts more. The fourth shifts even further. A clear process of transformation. When you finish, you will be able to see the emotional journey from the first section to the fourth.

Layer Three is more emotional. Before painting it, imagine yourselves one year from now. Imagine that after many artworks and many inner journeys, you have become slightly different people: freer, braver, more daring, more experienced. Imagine yourselves with fewer fears and fewer limitations. Paint as though you are already there. How would I paint if I were bolder, freer, more confident, more skilled? Imagine the future you and let that version guide your hand.

Each layer is about fifteen minutes. The whole process should last between forty and fifty minutes. Not less than forty, not more than fifty. In this lesson there are almost no color limitations. The first layer is completely free. The second begins with one free section and continues with the theme of change. The third is also unrestricted. This is an invitation to work with freedom, and also to confront the discomfort that freedom sometimes brings.

Acrylic gives us freedom, but sometimes that very freedom makes us feel lost. And this is one of the major lessons of this stage: to recognize that freedom can unsettle us, to learn how to navigate it, how to contain it, and how to use it. Freedom and its emotional complexity will accompany us throughout the entire acrylic stage. Good luck.

Chapter 3: Everyone Is Creative

Intuitive Painting, stage three, acrylic on canvas. We are now in the third lesson.
I know I did not mention this earlier, so I will say it clearly now. You can, and it is even recommended, to keep using the same canvas for a long period of time. It is meant for that.

The canvas is designed to be painted on many times. You complete a session with three layers, or with more layers later on, allow it to dry, and at your next session you paint again on the same canvas. At this point you should not feel any need to preserve the previous painting. You are invited to say goodbye to it and paint over it again and again and again.

Later, when you reach more advanced stages, either toward the end of this course or after it, you may find that after working several rounds on a specific canvas, one of the paintings truly touches your heart. Then you might choose to stop and keep it, maybe even hang it in your living room, because you genuinely love what came out of you. That is completely legitimate, but it should happen much later.

Otherwise two things may happen.
First, you will need many canvases, and there is absolutely no need for that.
Second, you may get stuck in self criticism. If you become too attached to the question of beauty or to the fear of “ruining” a painting too early in the process, it will be very hard to be free. Part of the freedom of intuitive painting is the permission to paint over what you already created. It served its purpose. The heart does not forget any of your creations. And now you move forward.

So keep using the same canvas. Work with it again and again until it becomes full to its edges. Only in the advanced stages, toward the end of the course, you might decide it is time to switch to a new canvas. Otherwise, continue with the same one.

Everyone Is Creative

Lesson three deals with the idea that every human being is creative.
And I believe that if you have come this far, and have dealt with all the challenges you faced in intuitive painting, then your worldview about creativity has already expanded. You can now sense more clearly what creativity is, who is creative, how creative you are, how creative life is, and how much creativity exists within every human being. Certainly it exists in you as well.

Not only that, but in every person creativity can be activated with the right tools. What we are doing here is a method, a system that ignites and awakens creativity.

This is the moment for you to look at your relationship with your own creativity.
Is creativity already experienced as something natural for you, as a part of life, as a part of being human?
Is it less surprising for you that you are creative?
Do you feel more connected to the creative child within you, do you trust it more, do you have better access to it?
Are you living more comfortably with the fact that you are a creative person?
Where would you like to take your creativity further?
How much support do you give your creativity?
How much creativity do you recognize in other people?
How much do you see creativity as an essential element of human nature?

When we train through intuitive painting, especially with acrylic on canvas, where the possibilities are endless and the painting can change from moment to moment with a single brushstroke, we give creativity a magnificent stage. The better our relationship with creativity becomes, and the less we criticize it, the more it flows, expands, deepens, surprises, and supports emotional transformation.

So everyone is creative. You are creative. I am creative. Every person we meet is creative. The real question is how much of it is expressed, how aware we are of it, and whether we have tools like intuitive painting that can give it a place.

The Structure of the Painting for Lesson Three

We are still working with three layers.
However, if you feel comfortable and things flow for you easily, you may add a fourth free layer whose purpose is to change what was in the previous layer. It does not matter whether you change the second layer, the third, or the fourth. It is entirely your choice.

As always, the first layer is free, and you will do at least three layers. If you have time, energy, and desire, you may add the optional fourth. Remember to keep the first layer relatively thin so it can dry and be ready for the next stage.

And now something important that I did not emphasize earlier:
It is completely fine if the previous layer has not dried fully. A bit of mixing is natural. This is the nature of acrylic. The material is meant to blend. Sometimes the mixing looks a bit muddy. That is part of the process. You will add color, respond to what happens, and play with the unexpected combinations that the mixing brings. If the surface dries quickly, wonderful. If not, you work with what is there.

Painting Instructions

First Layer – Free Painting
As always, begin freely. Move, play, explore, warm up on the canvas.

Second Layer – A Wild Celebration of Flowers and Nature
Create a wild celebration of flowers, leaves, grasses, and thorns. A real festival.
Flowers of every kind, every size, every direction.
Small, large, colorful, pale, bright, muted, strange.
Chaos, joy, abundance, nature overflowing across the entire canvas.

Third Layer – Painting With Your Fingers
For the first time in this stage, work with your fingers.
Do it slowly. Take a color and spread a circle.
Take another color and spread another circle next to it.
And another, and another.
Sometimes let the circles overlap, sometimes keep them separate.
Fill the whole canvas with many circles, in many colors, made with your fingers.
You may use both hands, right hand, left hand, even a bit with eyes closed if you wish.

The circles should not all be the same size.
Be creative.
Avoid falling into repetition.
Remind yourself to break patterns, to vary the sizes, the rhythm, the shapes.

Optional Fourth Layer – Free
If you have time left and feel open and inspired, add a free fourth layer.
Do whatever feels right.
Enjoy.
Move with your creativity without fear of making something “ugly.”
Sometimes the less beautiful parts of us want to be expressed too, and the canvas is a place where they can receive their space.

Chapter 4: Walking Into the Unknown

In this lesson we move on to working with five layers.
Anyone who feels ready may complete all five layers.
Anyone who feels this is still too early may continue with only three layers.
Both options are appropriate and valid at this stage of the process.

When working with acrylic, it is important to understand the material.
Acrylic dries relatively quickly, but when too much paint is applied, layers tend to mix and gradually turn into a single muddy tone.
This is normal and there is no reason to be alarmed.
However, it is preferable at this stage to avoid this effect by using small amounts of paint in each layer.
If mixing does occur, simply work a bit more slowly, add paint gradually, and avoid rapid blending of all the layers together.
Leave about a minute or two of space between layers to allow the paint to settle.

The purpose of this lesson is to strengthen the ability to work with the unknown.
In any creative process, the unknown is an open space in which we have not yet created.
It is the space where learning happens.
When we operate only within familiar methods, familiar colors, and familiar movements, we do not grow.
We repeat ourselves.
Therefore it is important to introduce elements that are unfamiliar, to work with colors we do not usually choose, and to try movements, directions, and approaches that are new for us.

The unknown is sometimes experienced as threatening.
This is not an emotional truth but a cognitive reaction.
The left hemisphere of the brain identifies any situation that is not under control as a potential danger.
This is the only reason the unknown feels frightening.
In reality, nothing in the unknown is harmful.
It is simply territory we have not yet explored.
When we create inside it, it becomes familiar.
Immediately afterward a new space of unknown appears.
This is a natural process of expansion.

Each completed layer turns something previously unfamiliar into something known.
And with that, a new unknown opens up.
This dynamic is fundamental to creativity.
A space becomes familiar only after we create within it.
Once it becomes familiar, a new edge of possibility appears, inviting us to enter it.

Working with acrylic on canvas allows us to practice this dynamic directly through repeated layers.
The canvas becomes a training arena in which we learn to expand our boundaries, expose ourselves to new possibilities, and practice methods and choices that are not part of our habitual patterns.

Painting Instructions – Lesson 4

Work is done in three or five layers, depending on each student’s readiness.
Total work time is between forty and forty five minutes.

Below are the detailed instructions:

Layer One – Freedom Layer

The purpose of this layer is to return to the act of painting without judging the result.
Work with a variety of colors such as yellow, black, green, grey, and any others you wish to include.
Play music and let your hand move with the rhythm.
Work with the right hand and the left hand according to what feels natural to you.
Fill the entire canvas.
This layer does not require planning or analysis.
It requires continuous and spontaneous movement.

Layer Two – Geometric Shapes

In this layer the entire canvas is filled with geometric shapes, each one painted in a different color.
Avoid repeating the same shape or the same size.
The goal is to create a colorful puzzle of many shapes, each one independent.
Once the entire canvas is covered, stop and wait about one minute.

Layer Three – Free Layer (only for those doing five layers)

This layer is intended to disrupt part of what exists and build something new over it.
You may work with your fingers, as in the previous lesson, but use small amounts of paint.
This layer allows release, expression, and a direct response to what occurred in the earlier layers.

Those working with three layers will skip this step. The next layer will be their third and final one.

Layer Four – Guided Layer

This is a guided layer with a clear instruction:

“My anger grows and expands in a positive way.”

The goal is to practice turning a powerful emotion into a creative space.
Use only six colors.
The work should be focused and intentional, expressing an inner movement rather than creating a fixed visual image.

For those working with three layers, this is the final layer.

Layer Five – Limited Freedom (for those doing five layers)

This is a free layer with one limitation:
Use only black, white, and red.
This limitation is meant to develop creativity within constraints.

Closing Notes

Throughout the lesson, keep music playing.
Do not expect the painting to be “beautiful,” and do not be disappointed if the result looks uneven or messy.
A meaningful part of the creative process is allowing less beautiful paintings to exist.
Often these are the places where the deepest learning takes place.

Chapter 5: Self-Love

We now continue into Lesson Five of Intuitive Painting, Part Three, Acrylic on Canvas.
At this point you have already gathered real experience with this medium. You can begin to sense how acrylic behaves, where it flows easily, where it surprises you, and where it creates technical challenges. All of this is part of the learning process. Just like in the body, creative skill grows through continuity and practice.

Continuity is a central element in this work.
Intuitive painting is a form of knowledge that grows from within. It is not only something we learn externally, but a capacity that awakens as we continue to work, experiment, open up, make mistakes, return again, and simply keep going. This is why we continue. We enter Lesson Five.

Just as in the previous cycles of this course, Lesson Five deals with the relationship between intuitive painting and self-love.
Self-love is a vast topic that can be approached from many angles. We can examine how self-love supports the painting process, and also how the practice of intuitive painting itself awakens a sense of love within us. This is not a love that depends on another person, but an inner presence, an energy that arises naturally when we create freely.

Self-love is not an abstract idea.
It is an energy.
A presence.
A quality that emerges when we let go of criticism, control, and expectation.
When we allow movement, allow expression, allow playfulness and imperfection, we rediscover something that was always inside us: love.

We forget this often.
Life pulls us into tension, worry, stress, demands, habits, and emotional fatigue. In such states, we lose contact with the inner sense of love. We may still know it theoretically, but we do not feel it.
Intuitive painting helps us return to this feeling.
It offers a safe, creative space in which love can be felt, expressed, and remembered.

When we paint consistently, without judgment, without trying to impress, without demanding beauty, we create an inner container that allows love to surface.
It becomes an inner atmosphere, a memory of who we really are.
Love cannot be damaged here.
It does not depend on someone else’s approval.
It emerges simply because the creative space allows it.

The more courage we bring, the more love can appear.
The less afraid we are of “doing it wrong,” of “making something ugly,” or of letting our emotions take form on the canvas, the more the possibility grows to meet that inner quality of love. It might come strongly or softly, clearly or subtly, but it is always there.

A facilitator of intuitive painting must understand this deeply:
In guiding others, we are helping them encounter one of the most essential forces of their inner world — the love within them.
This is a privilege, and one of the profound intentions behind the method.

Lesson Five focuses on this experience.

Painting Instructions – Lesson 5: Self-Love

By now, most participants will be working with four to five layers.
Each layer lasts around eight to ten minutes.
Work a bit more or less as needed.

Layer One – Free Painting

A completely free layer.
Let the hand move. Choose any colors that feel right.
Paint with music.
Work lightly so the layer dries quickly and prepares the canvas for the second layer.

Layer Two – “Rushing Streams of Love”

Use only four colors of your choice.
Fill the entire canvas with flowing, energetic movements that express the idea of love as a moving force.
Let the movements shift, expand, and pulse like waves.

Layer Three – Free Exploration

Ten minutes of free painting.
Change what was there before. Add, remove, blend, rebuild.
This is a layer for play, courage, and exploration.

Layer Four – “The Contraction of Love”

Use eight colors only, including black, white, and red.
The phrase “the contraction of love” refers to the moment when love shrinks before expanding again.
Let the painting become unusual, condensed, expressive.
Let the shapes be unexpected.
There is nothing to fear — this layer will ultimately expand your sense of connection, not shrink it.

Layer Five – Free Completion

For those who still have time: a completely free layer.
Finish the painting in a way that feels natural.
Let love, freedom, and movement guide you.

At the end of this lesson, as always, thank yourself for the work.
The painting does not need to be beautiful. It needs to be real.
Often the “not beautiful” paintings are the ones that open the deepest doors.

You are progressing beautifully.
This path includes moments of pleasure and moments that are not easy. Both are essential.
Whatever appears on the canvas is valid and meaningful.

The most important thing is to continue.
Continue to the next painting.
We will meet again in the next lesson.

Chapter 6: Reducing Excessive Self-Criticism

We have arrived at Lesson Six, the midpoint of this phase of acrylic on canvas.
Although this course contains twelve lessons, the intention is not that the learning ends here. After completing this course, you will no longer need me for most of the structure. Acrylic on canvas will become your personal and ongoing path of expressive, intuitive painting — a path through which you will continue to explore your life, heal yourself, and deepen your inner world through creative practice.

These twelve lessons, together with the two previous courses, are designed to establish intuitive painting as a lifelong skill.
This work becomes part of who you are.
It will remain with you as a tool for freedom, health, emotional flow, and creative pleasure.

Lesson Six focuses on the connection between intuitive painting and the reduction of excessive self-criticism — a topic I speak about often, both in this course and throughout the Psycho-Creative approach.

Inside each of us lives a part that is afraid, that feels unworthy, that is convinced it is not good enough, that tries to warn us against mistakes, failures, disappointments, or wasted time.
You know this part.
It is the inner critic, the inner police officer, the internal loss of sovereignty.

As I have explained before, intuitive painting was originally created as a path to work through excessive self-criticism. This was its foundational purpose.

Why must we address excessive self-criticism?
Because only when we reduce it can we access our natural, spontaneous, intuitive language — the inner movement that heals us.

When self-criticism is too strong, it blocks us.
It becomes the gatekeeper that prevents us from trying, exploring, expressing, learning, risking, playing, and growing.
We become afraid to begin, afraid to continue, afraid to express, afraid to make mistakes, afraid of what we will discover inside ourselves.

Excessive self-criticism serves our fears.
It freezes them in place and convinces us that we cannot move beyond them.

But the more we practice intuitive techniques — whether painting, dance, writing, or any spontaneous creative act — the more we challenge our self-criticism and prove to ourselves that we can act with less of its influence.
We shift it aside.
Even temporarily, this shift gives us breathing space.

All the methods we use here — filling the entire canvas, working in layers, painting quickly, following clear time limits, using repeated instructions — are intentional tools designed to reduce excessive self-criticism.
They help us bypass it and loosen its grip.

Self-criticism is a messenger of fear.
Fear of freedom.
Fear of expansion.
Fear of growth.
Fear of our own passion, longing, excitement, and vitality.

These fears exist within us for many reasons.
Self-criticism amplifies them.
It will never disappear entirely, but with practice we become more skillful in softening its power.

Through repeated intuitive creation, we develop the ability to notice the critic and still move forward.
We can say to it:
“I do not agree. I am not obeying you. I am not letting you frighten me. I am continuing.”

We continue with mistakes.
We continue with movement.
We continue with experimentation and play.
We continue with our growth.

This entire practice is a tool to reduce self-criticism and uncover natural, spontaneous creativity beneath it.

In today’s lesson we will give our fears and our critic a double spotlight, but through play — so their power decreases and our freedom increases.

Painting Instructions – Lesson 6: Reducing Excessive Self-Criticism

We will create five layers on the same canvas.

Layer One – Free but Only in Black and White

A simple warm-up layer.
Use only black and white.
Move freely and fill the whole canvas.

Layer Two – “The Strange Kingdom of My Fear”

Paint a wild, crowded world full of strange fear-creatures.
The more frightening, the more exaggerated, the more bizarre — the better.
Use at least ten colors.
Play with it.
Enjoy the paradox that the more you try to create fear, the more fun it becomes.

Layer Three – Free Painting

Go over everything that was painted before and create something new.
Blend, shift, erase, rebuild — anything goes.
If some areas are still wet, work with whatever the paint gives you.

Layer Four – “Madam Criticism”

Paint a figure, shape, or energy that represents your self-criticism.
Not to shrink it, but to meet it fully.
Let the hand lead.
Do not plan or judge.
Allow the canvas to show you how your inner critic appears visually in this moment.

Layer Five – Free Completion

A final free layer.
You may no longer see the earlier layers clearly, but they remain inside the painting like emotional memory.
If you want, you can photograph each stage before painting over it.

Remember: the very act of painting layer over layer is itself a powerful tool for reducing self-criticism.
The critic wants you to protect the earlier work, to freeze it, to avoid change and risk.
We do the opposite.
We let go.
We move forward.
We do not cling to “good moments” or “nice results.”
We trust the process.

This is how we grow.

Thank you for your courage and your presence.
You are doing deep work.
Today we honored self-criticism by meeting it honestly and playing with its energy, instead of obeying it.

We will meet again in Lesson Seven.

Chapter 7: Bringing Myself as I Am

Intuitive painting, stage three, acrylic on canvas. We arrive at lesson seven, a stage where many of the foundations have already been absorbed. This is the moment when intuitive painting begins to enter daily life, not only as something done within the lesson framework, but as a practice that accompanies days and weeks.
At this point it is recommended to paint also on your own. Take the canvas, choose the number of layers in advance, put on music, set forty five minutes, and let the process unfold. When intuitive painting becomes a routine, it becomes a living tool, a healing tool, a tool that allows expression and movement.

The theme of this lesson, bringing myself as I am, is deeply connected to the psycho creative space. This is a space that allows a person to express internal layers that have no verbal language, sometimes things that are hidden even from conscious understanding. Pain that was repressed, fears that remain locked, inner content that never received a voice. All these can emerge in intuitive painting without planning, without thinking, without fear.

In a mysterious and fascinating way, when we challenge the boundaries of the “self” within intuitive creation, we begin to discover aspects of our being that we did not know existed. We expand the range of expression of our authentic parts, the ones that remained sealed behind protective walls and behind the limited identity we adopted for ourselves.

In other words, intuitive painting helps us discover that who we truly are is far more than who we think we are, and far more than the version of ourselves we recognize when we look at ourselves from the outside. Bringing myself as I am means moving away from what is familiar and habitual during the act of creation, only to discover that there are parts of me that have always been there, waiting for the freedom and boldness of creative movement in order to be revealed.

Layer after layer, we meet new parts of ourselves. The current layer is always temporary, because beneath it lies another layer, and beneath that another one. The layered work trains us to go beyond what we already know, to break the familiar pattern, and to search for the next step.

This is a training in authenticity. To dare to be who we are. To dare to change the painting that exists right now. To dare to use colors we avoided. To dare to move through the present expression into a new one.

Those who feel capable may work with seven layers. Those who need a slower pace can work with five. Both paths are correct.

Painting Instructions

• Layer one free.
• Layer two “my protective walls.”
• Layer three free.
• Layer four “breaking my walls.” Use at least ten colors.
• Layer five free.
• Layer six “the wondrous world beyond the walls.” Four colors. Work slowly.
• Layer seven free.

Chapter 8: Expressing the Hardest Things

Intuitive painting, stage three, acrylic on canvas. We have arrived at lesson eight, and by now it is already clear that something inside us has changed. After many lessons with pastels, panda acrylic, and now acrylic on canvas, we have accumulated enough experience to allow deeper emotional movement. Some will work with four or five layers in forty five minutes, others may work with seven, eight or even nine layers. Each temperament finds its natural rhythm, and all of it is correct.

This lesson reminds us of something we have already touched many times in different ways. One of the most important purposes of intuitive painting is emotional transformation. It is not simply a matter of choosing which feelings we want to work through. The psyche itself leads the process. If we want to grow, to release ourselves, to open the channels between inside and outside, we need to allow as many emotional layers as possible to come to the canvas. This includes the hardest ones.

Not because we must express them. Not because anything is forced. But because without allowing the difficult material to move, it remains inside as a blockage, a wall, a weight. Then our development stops at a certain point. To move beyond that point we need to invite, at least sometimes, the difficult things to come forward in symbolic, expressive, creative form.

We do not have access to everything. Some material is still too deeply repressed and cannot yet surface, and that is completely fine. But much of what is painful, heavy, or frightening is accessible enough to be expressed at least symbolically, and doing so is recommended. Not in every layer, not all the time, but sometimes, deliberately, with courage and gentleness.

Intuitive painting is a kind of endless journey into the depths of the psyche, a highly sophisticated vehicle that allows us to touch places we cannot reach directly through logic, thought, or words. We are meant to take advantage of this unique quality of intuitive painting, recognizing from experience that it provides a safe passage into territories that are otherwise inaccessible.
Every human being needs a way to release the inner “demons,” and when this release becomes symbolic, creative, colorful, rhythmic, and even enjoyable, it becomes a genuine act of self healing. It becomes an emotional cleansing, one of the central and most significant functions of intuitive painting in a person’s inner life.

Sometimes the difficult feelings emerge through specific colors, through dark or “ugly” textures, through movements that feel heavy or chaotic. These expressions have value. They represent emotional content that has been waiting to be released. When we let them out, they transform. The body softens. The breath opens. The canvas becomes a witness and a partner in healing.

Painting Instructions

• Layer one free.
• Layer two three colors only brown, gray and black for the theme not comfortable.
• Layer three free, using any colors you want to rise above the discomfort and transform it.
• Layer four eight colors for the theme “very not comfortable.”
• Layer five free with fingers expressive and physical.
• Layer six “tears of truth”, as much or as little as you choose.
• Layer seven free if there is time.

Chapter 9: The Magic of the “Ugly Painting”

Intuitive painting, acrylic on canvas, lesson nine.
By now you have already walked a meaningful distance in absorbing this way of working, this action, this inner movement that happens through intuitive painting. Your meeting with the canvas, the colors, and the brush already contains more freedom, more emotional presence. You cannot reach this point without several important shifts happening inside you, and this is beautiful.

Lesson nine deals with one of the most enjoyable and powerful themes in intuitive painting: the magic of the ugly painting. We have already met this concept in pastels, in panda acrylic, and in earlier stages. The term “ugly painting” represents a doorway into emotional freedom. It is not only about allowing ourselves to create something aesthetically unpleasant. It is not only about calming the inner critic. It is about discovering something deeper.

There is a higher level in this practice where the “ugly painting” becomes a portal. A door opens. New realities appear. These realities cannot be discovered through the desire to create something beautiful. They emerge only when we consciously choose to step into the realm of the ugly, the messy, the chaotic, the broken, the seemingly wrong.
This realm represents the freedom to stain, to be crude, to be raw, to be unaesthetic, to express aggression, to use a lot of black, to be incomprehensible, to make a mess without fear. None of this is about hurting someone else. It is about freeing parts of ourselves that have been waiting for a legitimate space to move.

When we truly allow ourselves to “go ugly,” something unexpected happens inside. A deeper harmony becomes possible. Not the surface harmony of quietness or politeness, but the deeper harmony that comes from engaging with the restless, energetic, emotional layers inside us. When these layers finally move, genuine balance and renewal appear.

At the same time, and with the same breath, it is essential to remember what can only be discovered when we courageously dive as deeply as we can into the territory of the so called ugly painting. Many times, the result that eventually emerges from such a process moves us deeply, even awakens in us surprising aesthetic experiences, experiences of beauty that we could never have reached without first passing through what we called the ugly.

After all, what could be more beautiful than emotional truth that has never managed to come out, finally finding a way to be released and expressed fully, without judgment and without fear?

In this way, intuitive painting invites us to reexamine our concepts of beauty and ugliness, to question their validity, to expand them, to rebuild them with greater curiosity and courage. We become freer from social conditioning, freer from the need to look good, freer from the pressure to hide the beauty that exists inside authentic, spontaneous expression, open to whatever wants to emerge in each moment.

Painting Instructions

• Layer one free with fingers only, using little paint.
• Layer two “ugly,” black and white only, with a brush, quiet and rough.
• Layer three free, listening closely to what your belly wants to express.
• Layer four “ugly, noisy and fast,” with many colors and loud music, four minutes.
• Layer five fingers again, slow, meditative, calming.
• Layer six “ugly with geometric shapes,” four colors only.
• Layer seven free if time remains.

Chapter 10: Finding True Freedom

Intuitive painting, acrylic on canvas, Lesson Ten. This lesson carries a broad and evocative title that accompanies everything we have practiced so far, finding true freedom. Of course, this is a title, just like saying “finding absolute truth” or “finding ultimate clarity,” yet I believe deeply that human beings rise, layer after layer, into greater degrees of freedom. Freedom is never a destination we reach once and for all; it is a lifelong unfolding. It is a gradual expansion in our ability to express, to grow, to transform, to open, to love ourselves and to live in greater peace with who we are.

Freedom can be spoken about from many angles. Some aspects can be defined in a general way, but others are deeply personal and unique to every individual. Each person has their own freedom, shaped by their own history, temperament and emotional landscape. I find it important to distinguish between a “vacation” and “freedom.” A vacation is a temporary relief from the lack of freedom, an escape that ultimately returns us to the same place. Freedom on the other hand is a state of mind, a condition of being in which I am more attuned to myself, more connected to my inner desire, and more available to act in alignment with what truly moves me. It is not a temporary moment, but a mode of existence.

True freedom means being deeply connected to my inner compass, to my authentic desire, to my instinctive creativity. It means I am less afraid of myself, less confined by a prison of avoidance, and more open to my own emotional truth. Often this freedom requires action, and action requires courage. Intuitive painting trains us to become freer, to listen inwardly, to discover new parts of ourselves, to experiment, to search, and to act, at least symbolically, on the canvas.

Intuitive painting is also a form of vacation. It offers relief from the burdens of ordinary life. It is a space to step out of routine, enter a dreamlike realm, move freely, and receive a dose of emotional healing. It is both a vacation and a training ground for freedom.

To experience greater freedom in intuitive painting, we must learn to work with less self criticism. When there is less criticism inside us, we allow more parts of ourselves to express and reveal themselves. When there is less criticism, we gain more freedom in many forms, including the freedom of self fulfillment and creative realization. From here, I want to focus on two central aspects of freedom in intuitive painting, one following the other.

The first is the freedom to act and be what I want. This means connecting to my impulses, to my drives, to my desires, to the forces inside me that want to come out now. This is freedom of expression.

The second, which is no less important, is the freedom to approach what frightens me. Freedom to face what I avoid. Freedom to touch the parts of myself that I believe are “not me,” the places that feel forbidden, messy or disturbing. These neglected areas are part of my internal prison. When they are too closed off, too guarded, they demand energy to maintain their confinement. That energy is stolen from my capacity to live, express and thrive.

When I can approach what frightens me, when I can express what disgusts me or disturbs me, and transform it symbolically on the canvas, I release the need to guard it so tightly. As a result, more freedom becomes available.

This is also one of the reasons acrylic on canvas is the third technique we learn. It contains the greatest freedom. Entering this level too early can cause confusion, because too much freedom without the proper tools may overwhelm the painter. The previous techniques provide training in managing emotions using more contained materials, which gradually build inner confidence. By the time we arrive at acrylic on canvas, we are ready.

Intuitive Painting Instructions – Lesson Ten

Layer One — Fast and Free
Using a brush and several colors, fill the entire canvas within four minutes. Speed creates freedom.

Layer Two — Full Freedom in Black and White
Paint another fast layer, using only black and white. About five minutes.

Layer Three — Limited Freedom in Geometric Shapes
Using eight colors, work for eight to ten minutes creating geometric shapes. A slower, more deliberate layer.

Layer Four — Free Painting with Fingers
Ten colors, using only fingers. Fill the whole canvas within five to six minutes. Allow the “mess” to happen.

Layer Five — Wild Field of Flowers
A field full of countless flowers, grasses, butterflies, and wild colors. Fill the entire canvas.

Layer Six — Freedom Created Through Stripes
Create a full layer made of stripes, thick or thin, in many colors.

Layer Seven — My Great Freedom
A final free layer using any colors you choose until the forty five minutes end.

Freedom is not a single event. It is practiced again and again, in painting and in life.

Chapter 11: Getting Lost to find Home

Intuitive painting, acrylic on canvas, Lesson Eleven. Anyone who has reached this point has already traveled a meaningful journey with intuitive painting. Along the way you have absorbed the method, the inner logic, the release, the emotional depth and the movement that this practice invites. I am recording this lesson from a slightly noisier environment than usual, yet this does not diminish the quality of the teaching. In fact, it highlights one of the core principles of intuitive painting: we work with what is present, and create from within it.

Sometimes life gives us conditions that are less than ideal. There may be noise, disruptions, or unexpected chaos. Intuitive painting teaches us not to run away from these disturbances, but to weave them into the creative act itself. We are not dependent on perfect conditions. We create with what is here.

Of course, when possible, we choose quiet, comfortable conditions. But when circumstances are not ideal, we do not stop. We integrate the noise, the restlessness and the disorder into the painting. This itself is an act of emotional flexibility, resilience and creative truth. It is a profound lesson in life: do not wait for perfect conditions. Create with what you have.

The title of this lesson is getting lost to find home. Traditionally, the idea of getting lost evokes fear. To “get lost” means to lose the path, to lose direction, to lose the ability to return. Children often speak with fear about things “getting lost.” Getting lost is associated with disappearance, with danger, even with a hint of death.

But here we speak about getting lost to find home. This means that in order to return to the true home inside us, the home of natural creativity and emotional freedom, we must allow ourselves to lose our familiar path. The habitual path is shaped by excessive logic, relentless self criticism, chronic worry, pressure and fear. It is the world we live in, and we often believe there is no other way.

But those who paint intuitively know otherwise. They know there are worlds within them that open only when they let themselves wander, drift, and lose the need for control. Getting lost is not losing oneself; it is finding a deeper part of oneself.

To get lost on the way home means letting go of habitual control. It means allowing the hand to move without supervision, allowing the left hand to participate, painting with closed eyes, turning the canvas, choosing colors that seem “wrong,” destroying and rebuilding layers, following impulses that make no sense, and letting intuition lead.

It is like walking in nature and stepping off the main path. At first there is uncertainty, but then comes discovery. When we trust the process, unexpected beauty appears, emotional truth emerges, and new inner landscapes reveal themselves.

To reach home, we must leave the “false home,” the inner place that feels safe but is actually a prison made of routine, emotional stagnation and resistance to change. Leaving this false home can be frightening at first, but within the creative space it is safe. The canvas holds us. The process holds us. Eventually, moments of joy, emotional clarity and transformation arise. We lose our way in order to find the real way.

Getting lost is a temporary surrender of certain defenses and habits of control. It is an invitation for the creative spirit to take the lead. This can be practiced in painting, and also in life. Many areas of life offer opportunities to get lost, just a little, in a safe and intentional way, in order to discover something deeply essential.

Intuitive Painting Instructions – Lesson Eleven

Layer One — Free and Colorful
A fully free layer using as many colors as possible. Energetic music, movement, expression. Mainly with brushes, with occasional finger work if desired.

Layer Two — Free with Two Colors Only
After the first layer has begun to dry, create a second free layer using only two colors. Freedom inside limitation.

Layer Three — Getting Lost Inside a Maze
Create a maze. No explanation, no guidance. Your own way of expressing the idea. Use four to six colors.

Layer Four — Free with Fingers
A completely free fingerpainting layer. No brushes. Fingers make it easier to get lost.

Layer Five — Getting Lost in Circles
A full layer made entirely of circles. Small, large, medium, in as many colors as you wish.

Layers Six and Seven — Paintings of Desire
If time remains within the forty five minutes, create two separate desire paintings. Each painting expresses desire, each with a different set of colors.

This is getting lost on the way home.
A profound and sweet practice of returning to yourself through the courage to lose your way.

Chapter 12: What Is Your Intuition Telling You?

This is the final lesson of this program.
And of course, it is important not to see this lesson as an ending, but as a pause along the way. Creativity does not know the concept of “final.” It exists only through continuous flow, through movement, through an ongoing willingness to open space for expression. And if you have reached this point, it means you have already practiced intuitive, spontaneous, emotional flow many times, from many angles, and your inner creative system has already begun to awaken.

From here on, your role is to continue. Continue painting once, twice, three times a week. Forty-five minutes each time. Several layers. Each layer different from the one before it. If you know people who practice or guide intuitive painting, you can show them your paintings now and then and ask for a prompt for your next layer. And if not, that is completely fine. You simply put on music, decide how many layers you will paint, and go. There is tremendous value in learning to carry this journey by yourself. When you do, your creative intelligence expands even more, because it becomes less dependent on external prompts and more receptive to inner ones. New symbols emerge, new forms, new energies you could not have reached through guided instruction alone.

This final lesson deals with the heart of the entire process. It revolves around one central question, a question that has accompanied everything you have done so far: What is your intuition telling you? What is your intuition truly telling you?
In intuitive painting, we learn to communicate with our inner language, with our internal speech. Intuition receives a place to speak. It is not pushed aside by logic, not controlled by planning, not filtered through the conscious mind’s need for explanations. In this space it can express itself freely.

Intuition is a form of inner dialogue. Sometimes it appears as a sudden shift in movement, sometimes as a desire for a specific color, sometimes as a pull toward erasing, destroying, rebuilding, or changing direction. Sometimes it comes as a vague impulse, and sometimes as a clear and electrifying urge. Intuition is also a voice of growth, renewal, desire, initiative, and transformation. It always asks us to move into something we have not yet known.

This is what distinguishes it from cognitive thinking. Logic is limited to what it already knows, to what it can justify, to what it can explain. Intuition sees far beyond that. It is the pioneer. It feels first. It knows first. It senses possibilities the rational mind cannot process yet, because the logical mind seeks certainty and evidence, while intuition needs none of these things. It simply perceives, because it looks at life from a wider angle, from an inner perspective that includes emotion, sensitivity, memory, imagination, and future potential.

When intuition pushes us toward a certain direction, it is usually because it already “sees” something the logical mind cannot yet see. Not because intuition predicts the future, but because its field of perception is larger by nature.

Of course, intuition is not always clean. Sometimes what feels like intuition is actually fear. Sometimes it is resistance. Sometimes it is emotional habit or inner addiction. That is part of the human experience. But with training, with emotional release, with the reduction of self-criticism, we gradually learn to distinguish the true intuitive voice. The confusion becomes smaller. The inner clarity grows.

This is one of the greatest gifts this course is meant to give you: a stronger, deeper, clearer connection to your intuition. This connection influences every area of life: decision-making, relationships, creativity, healing, personal growth. It always leads to positive transformations.

In this final lesson we will practice intuition even more directly. We will not define a number of layers, but we will create a structure of movement between two extremes: fast painting and slow painting, back to fast, back to slow, and finally leaving several minutes at the end for a concluding layer that brings together everything that emerged.

Intuitive Painting Guidelines – Lesson 12

Layer One — Very Fast Painting
Two to three minutes. Three to four colors. Paint as fast as possible. Fill the entire canvas. No thinking. No checking. Only movement and speed.

Layer Two — Slow and Extended Painting
Add different colors and continue painting for twelve to thirteen minutes. Work slowly. Do not finish early. This layer is about patience, depth, presence, and commitment to the moment.

Layer Three — Fast Painting Again
This time use only black and white. Again, move fast for two to three minutes. Release tension. Destroy what was there. Mix into the previous layers. Stay in motion without fear.

Layer Four — Slow Painting: A Pastoral Tree
Ten to twelve minutes. Paint a large tree with a wide trunk, visible roots, twisting branches, leaves, fruits, maybe even a house behind it. Work slowly. Allow the hand to guide you. This is a layer of quiet, focus, and gentle accuracy.

Layer Five — Another Fast Painting
Again, two to three minutes. Release the accumulated tension. Even if it “ruins” something beautiful from the layer before, that is perfectly okay. Trees can always be painted again, even immediately afterward.

Final Layer — Free Painting
Use the remaining time (up to forty-five minutes, or slightly extended to fifty-five if you wish). Paint whatever comes. Whatever the intuition is whispering. With brushes or fingers. With eyes open or closed. Free expression that completes the entire journey.

At the end, pause and breathe. Look at what you created. Listen quietly.
What is your intuition telling you now?

Thank you for being here.
May you continue this emotional-creative journey from this point onward as a living practice, one that supports healing, growth, inner freedom and transformation.