USING YOGA PRINCIPLES TO AWAKEN THE ARTIST WITHIN Simple guidelines for great success in drawing.

Click here to check out Calley’s progress on her latest RAMA EXHIBITION painting, currently in progress at Four Seasons Hualalai every Monday and Friday from morning til evening.

Relax! Deep breathe. Focus on the feelings in your body and open up a mantra. My natural state is creativity.
Start small, choosing a simple object to draw with your intention set to effortless ease, joyous play, and seeing clearly without thinking.
Keep it simple. This is a simple pleasure. Simplicity is beauty.
Format: Lift up your hands, put your thumbs together and make a hand square frame to size and shape the view. It’s magic!
Meditate. Breathe deeply. Quiet your mind. Stay conscious with an upright alive tall and youthful posture. Come into the now. Drawing is a healing meditation. This is about enjoying what you see, not what you have heard drawing is.
Begin to draw the basic structure very, very lightly. This is a key. See the basic relationships, the underlying structure and the overall shapes and lay them in first to get a sense of the proportions.
See, feel and draw the textures. Let your imagination flow into your arm and hand. It’s all texture. Let joy flow to your heart and just play, letting the movement of your hand mimic the texture.
Look at what you are drawing and not at your paper. Looking far to near strengthens your eyes.
Deepen and darken your lines progressively only as they please you. Yes, I like that. Then emphasize it. This will create living lines that breathe. Intention shows through!
Let the details wait. Do that which you have time to do. Have fun with them while you stay true to the foundational structure. Balance chaos and control. Release!
Diligently pay attention so you can hear and weed out judgmental, fearful and critical thinking. Drawing is not a competition; it is a meditation on expressing YOUR OWN creativity and perception NOW. Have fun with the practice. You don’t have to be a camera. Express yourself.
Practice. Practice. Carry a recycled paper drawing pad wherever you go. Use a 5 (light) then a 7 (medium) and finish off with a 9 (bold) HB click pencil with renewable erasers. Enjoy seeing clearly. Keep Relaxing
Read Frederick Franck’s the Zen of Seeing and practice.
Be present and develop confidence through mantras in English.

About The Rama Exhibition

Calley O’Neill is a highly respected artist, muralist, visionary designer and social ecologist from the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Journalists have described her art, which spans four decades, as ethno-visionary, dynamic, symbolic and breathtaking. Calley finds her expression through classical glaze painting in mixed media works, public murals, stained glass and mosaic. Her landmark Healing Gardens of Makahikilua master plan for North Hawai’i Community Hospital in Kamuela received national recognition among top landscape architects in the field of therapeutic garden design. A great team player, Calley’s input raises the bar and sparks innovation toward healing the Earth and its inhabitants. Journalists have described her as ‘a way-finder’, ‘a life giving force’ and ‘a force of nature.’ Calley is known for exceptional quality draftsmanship, a crystalline mastery of glaze painting, stimulating diversity, relentless experimentation, and her love of the Earth and humanity. Her magnum opus is Rama, Ambassador for the Endangered Ones, and she continually works on the exhibition paintings in her Waimea studio and her plein air pop-up studio and tree gallery at the Four Seasons Hualalai at Historic Ka’upulehu, where she is the Artist in Residence. Her paintings are both visual prayers and wake-up calls. Calley earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, summa cum laude from Pratt Institute, New York (1974) and a Master’s Degree in Social Ecology from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont (1977).

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