Were it not for an intrepid art journal student of mine suggesting we finger paint at our next meeting, I would likely never have experienced expressive painting on my own. In fact, the idea of finger painting was daunting to me, not just because of the possible messiness in our classroom but because I didn't have a reference for painting with my fingers and hands. One of the first lessons I teach in creativity classes is tracing the hand outline onto the first art journal page and then make art inside the shape. This exercise has always been a nice ice breaker for those folks that suffer from white page-itis. But putting my hands into gooshy paint and moving them onto a nice fresh canvas with no thought of where this process was going was pretty foreign to me.
But I got over my misgivings in a hurry once I tried finger painting as an adult, and if you are following my blog at all, you know by now that I am spending a serious amount of my creative time doing expressive paintings. And the term "expressive painting" isn't dolling up the term "finger painting". This literally is the closest thing you can get in relating your body to your art. In expressive painting we are removing the intermediary element like paint brush, and while I still enjoy using other creative tools very much, some days I just want to get paint on my hands and move it around with no thought to the outcome.
If you have decided to try it after my glowing recommendation, here are some tips:
You might want to use freezer paper or the big Roll-o-paper they sell for kids to finger paint on. This will remove any fear you might have of "messing up a canvas". And yes, be prepared. You might mess up a canvas! You might make muddy colors! But guess what? You paint over it, and over it, and over it. You could do 365 paintings on the same one canvas, just for the fun experience of expressive painting each day.
Make sure the paint is non-toxic. Paints made for finger painting, found in the children's art section of stores such as Michaels and Joanns are non-toxic, as are most tempera paints. Read the labels, they should state Non Toxic in bold letters on the front.
Let the painting sit for a day after it dries so that you can approach it fresh the next day and see if it is telling you something. Sometimes even the muddy colors or lack of a focal point has a very interesting corner or shape hiding in there. We need new eyes to see these little gifties lurking in what might seem otherwise uninteresting to us. Then you might want to do a little dialoguing with the giftie. Who are you? What are you trying to tell me? If it seems like a good idea, take a piece of drawing charcoal (I like the fat pieces for big canvases and the thin pieces for smaller pieces) and expand on the giftie. For instance, I saw a bug in Firefly Twilight. A beetle-ish bug (and no, it wasn't the haircut, haha). When I popped legs on it, it was really beetle-ish, and then when I put orange-y yellow paint dots around the wings and body it was definitely lightning bug beetle material. Do not expect the gifties to do all the work! On Cosmos, it seemed like there was a humanoid figure in a cave at the verrrrrryyyy bottom of this long narrow canvas. What to do? I gave the human figure a fire to keep warm with and then painted the cosmos above and around him, thinking all the while of Orion's belt of stars (I love the constellation Orion, which I additionally alluded to for myself by painting in the pink of the horsehead nebula that lives inside Orion) and how the sky must have been like watching fireworks in the day of caves and night time fires. Think in terms of sweeping motions, choppy motions, light fingertip bouncing, etc. There are many ways to get texture onto paper or canvas with your fingers and hands. Explore! Work quickly with several surfaces going at once and do a series. Use the expressive drawing as a starting point for a piece if you are blocked. There is nothing like handling materials and playing when you are stumped for an idea. Expressive painting is one heck of a block stopper.
These are some beginning ideas for you, you will come up with more and hopefully write to me and let me know your results. Now, go Play in your Studio.