Tag: spontaneity

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Painting process matters, but so does serendipity

Carol L. Douglas painting workshops 2026
Larky Morning at Rockport Harbor, 11X14, on linen, $869 unframed includes shipping in continental US.

In painting, process is everything, except sometimes.

If you’ve taken one of my classes or workshops, you know I’m a firm believer in structure. A strong painting process keeps you from getting lost in the weeds. It helps you design before you render, block before you noodle, and solve value problems before you chase color. That’s true whether you’re working in oil painting, watercolor, acrylic, pastels or gouache. A repeatable painting process builds consistency. It’s the backbone of good studio practice and confident plein air painting.

A chance conversation in my Tuesday evening class got me thinking about the role of serendipity in painting. (Thank you, Jay.) As important as process is in painting, you must leave room for serendipity or it stops being art.

The Logging Truck, oil on archival canvasboard, 16X20, $2029.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

What is serendipity in painting?

Serendipity in painting is not laziness. It’s not skipping steps or hoping things will magically work out. It’s the willingness to recognize when an accident is actually better than your original plan. A loaded brush drags across the canvas and leaves a broken edge more interesting than the one you carefully constructed. A color you mixed in haste vibrates in a way you couldn’t have engineered. A palette knife scrapes a passage with more energy than the careful modeling beneath it. That’s not failure. That’s opportunity.

Painters who improve quickly understand that a structured art process is a framework, not a cage. You begin with intention: clear value structure, strong composition, hierarchy of edges, color harmony. You follow the process, but along the way, you stay alert and open to possibilities. You watch what the paint is doing. You respond.

Victoria Street, 16X20, oil on linen in a hard maple frame, $2029 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Serendipity vs. intuition

Intuition in art (as in all thinking) is real, but it isn’t mystical. Intuition is simply thinking that happens so fast your conscious mind can’t keep up. For artists, years of drawing, studying color theory, making dumb mistakes and observing nature get compressed into split-second decisions. When you say, “I just knew that edge needed softening,” what you really mean is that your brain processed thousands of similar visual problems before and offered a solution instantly.

However, artistic intuition isn’t automatic. It’s earned through disciplined painting practice.

Serendipity, on the other hand, is external. It’s what happens when the medium pushes back. Watercolor blooms unexpectedly. Oil paint mixes optically on the canvas. Pastel dust catches in the tooth of the paper in a way you didn’t predict. The artist’s job is to not eliminate these surprises but to recognize when they serve the painting.

Downtown Rockport, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, framed, $1594 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Danger comes when we become so committed to our original plan that we fix the life out of a piece. We smooth lively brushwork. We correct the slightly offbeat color that actually made the painting sing. We overwork passages because they don’t match our mental template of how things should look.

A strong painting process gives you control. Serendipity gives you vitality. Intuition ties them together. If you want stronger paintings, cultivate all three. Develop a clear, repeatable painting process. Train your intuition through steady, focused work. And then step back often enough to notice when the painting is offering you something better than you planned.

Want to strengthen your painting process without losing freshness and spontaneity? Join me in my painting classes and plein air workshops, where we focus on structure, design, value control—and yes, learning when to let the paint surprise you. Whether you’re a developing painter or a seasoned artist ready to break through a plateau, you’ll leave with practical tools, sharper instincts, and more confident brushwork.

Registration is now open for workshops in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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How to avoid preciousness: embrace mistakes

Painted at the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, by Bonnie Daley.

I’m teaching plein air in Sedona, which is one of America’s most wonderful hippie, dippy, trippy places. There’s a looseness of thinking here that leads straight to a looseness of painting, and you can see it in my students’ painting from yesterday, which veered closer to abstraction than is typical for plein air.

“One of my strengths as a painter is that I’m not worried about the result,” Rachel Houlihan told me. That means she isn’t bent about whether the painting is good or bad, she just paints. That, conversely, makes her a better painter and student because she is just never uptight about the end product.

Painted at the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, by Amelia Scanlan.

Avoiding preciousness in painting means embracing mistakes, spontaneity, imperfection, and risk. Here are some ideas to help you loosen up and paint more freely:

Mindset Shifts

Be more like Rachel: You will paint a lot of duds in your career; in fact, I’m three for three this week. Don’t worry about it. Throw that bad canvas on the pile and move on. If you haven’t made mistakes, if you haven’t got a pile of duds, you aren’t trying.

Painted at the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, by Libby Scanlan.

Embrace Mistakes: Remind yourself that mistakes are opportunities. I have noticed that sometimes the paintings that make me the most uncomfortable at the time I do them are the paintings that point the way that I’m heading in the future. And sometimes the most compelling passages of art started as accidents.

Value process over outcome: That’s really what Rachel was saying to me. When she was painting under a juniper in the Peace Park, she was perfectly content. Shift your focus from the results to being in the moment.

Set a Time Limit: If you don’t let yourself perseverate, you’re unlikely to obliterate everything that was once good about your painting.

Use Bigger Brushes: Everyone should always start with a brush that’s twice as big as they expect they need. That way they can’t overthink the details. If you need a smaller brush later, then go for it.

Painted at the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, by Stacy White.

Push past your comfort zone: I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard painting teachers say “not another brushstroke!” I’ve always wanted to smack those teachers. How can one know what the limit is, when one never pushes past the limit?

Painted at the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park, by Rachel Houlihan.

Registration is now open for workshops in 2026! Reserve your spot:

Can’t commit to a full workshop? Work online at your own pace:

Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters