Painting Workshop with Jesse Reno

Starting to build ground on my canvas in the studio

I just got back from a 5 day in-studio workshop with the amazing Jesse Reno.  I'd never been to Portland, OR before and I truly fell in love with the city, the people and the energy there. It was the kind of trip that felt life changing, setting me on a path I was meant to find all along.

I stayed in the beautiful Sellwood/Westmoreland area and was fortunate enough to walk to the studio every day. It rained on me the first half of the trip, but how can you be anything but inspired when you walk by flowers and neighborhoods like this! I had to plan extra time for walking everyday because I would stop and take a ton of pictures along the way.

Jesse, his dog Buddy and me

I first met Jesse in a one day workshop I took at an art retreat down in Virginia Beach this year. When a spot opened up for this workshop in his own studio, Brandon prompted me to join. I probably wouldn't have acted so quickly on my own and would have passed up a wonderful opportunity, so to him I am SO thankful!

Jesse's art is amazing, but what I and I think my classmates would all agree with, is that Jesse focuses on the process of painting, not the end result. 

Sure we discussed overall composition, and color and movement but Jesse focuses more on the meaning behind what you are doing and why. He helped us let go of expectations (which I think is one of my biggest roadblocks) and start to really SEE. We learned to let one move lead to the next, to view everything as an instance and opportunity. 

He was not really a teacher, more of a facilitator, helping you reveal bits of yourself. In the process we learned to appreciate finding our own balance between accident and purpose, action and reaction. Letting go towards our intentions, sharing bits of ourselves in our paintings that you would never know were there.

Although Jesse's class was all about painting, we all learned a lot more about ourselves over those 5 days. It was a pretty intense time frame for me, painting for 5 days straight, since my painting occurs these days during nap times and at night. It was on day 3 that I cried on the way to class, listening to some really meaningful music by Bon Iver. It was a beautiful cry, such a release...like I was cracking open in ways I hadn't allowed myself to do before. 

The three paintings I made the most progress on during my workshop

The top two are on 24" x 24" wood panels and the one below is 30"x 54"on rolled canvas

 I'm SO proud of the work I created over those five days, because I feel like there is more of ME infused in them than anything I've done before. I feel like I'm becoming the artist I was always meant to be.

My eternal thanks to Brandon for encouraging me to take this leap and to Jesse for guiding me on this crazy creative journey.