“If you can create with it, you can surely cope with it.”

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Intuitive Painting in Your Home

Intuitive Painting in Your Home

Dr. Pinkie Feinstein

Part 1: Soft Pastels

 

This book is shared with love by The Psycho-Creative World for anyone wishing to discover their natural creativity, flowing spontaneously and free from the limits of criticism or comparison. It is a journey inward: toward authenticity, toward the inner creator, and toward the creative freedom that is the birthright of every human being.

We recommend you share your work in this book in our WhatsApp Psycho-Creative Community Group. This way you extend your “home” and become a part of supportive spiritual-creative family where you can also ask questions, inspire and get inspired.

The Psycho-Creative World: https://www.drpinki.com/en/

 

Painting Together?

If you choose to experience these lessons as a pair or in a small group, it can become an even more powerful and enriching journey. The rule is simple: follow the exact same instructions and respect the framework given at the end of each chapter.

In addition, play what we call the “Switching Game.” Every time you begin a painting, after a few minutes exchange your work with the person next to you and continue painting on theirs. Repeat this switch two or three times.

It’s perfectly fine to “mess up” someone else’s painting, and just as fine for them to “mess up” yours. It’s also fine if your own painting never returns to you. None of that matters. What matters is that you keep going, complete the “quota” of paintings for the lesson, and work with whatever is in front of you.

These exchanges create an atmosphere of play and free you from excessive self-criticism or unnecessary attachment to “your” artwork. After all, what truly counts here is freedom and flow—not whether the result looks “beautiful.”

Enjoy yourselves, let loose, and share with us in the psycho-creative world how it felt for you.

 

 

 Chapter 1: What Is Intuitive Painting?

Hello and welcome. We are ready to begin. This is the very first step in our journey, the opening to a process that will unfold further and deeper with each session. Here we start with a unique and powerful method, the use of Bristol board (a thick, smooth drawing paper) with soft pastels, which, in its traditional form, is taught over twelve lessons. But now, we will explore it together in a digital, at-home version.

This process is vibrant, emotional, and full of discovery. It is a colorful adventure into your own subconscious, into the natural creative forces that live within you. I will not over-explain, because the real experience comes when you feel it yourself.

In each lesson, I will offer you insights, and directions about intuitive painting. Alongside that, you will receive assignments to do at home. Step by step, lesson by lesson, you will progress, and along the way, you will gain something invaluable: the emotional release that always comes when we practice intuitive painting in the right way.

So, in this first session, we must begin with the essential question: What is intuitive painting?

To answer that, we should also clarify what intuitive painting is not.

Intuitive painting is not planned. It is not drawing. It is not about a specific skill you have to master in order to be “good” at it. That belongs to other types of art, what is often taught in art schools or developed by people with certain talents. Here, there is no such thing as being “untalented.” Everyone can paint intuitively.

It is not about copying the outside world. We are not here to learn how to paint an apple, a tree, a vase, or a landscape. Instead, we are here to express our inner world, our emotions, through creative language. And when we do so, what emerges is not something that needs explanation or analysis. In fact, the less we explain, the freer we remain for the next painting.

At the beginning, we do not show our paintings to anyone. We don’t seek feedback, criticism, or validation. We don’t answer questions like, “What did you paint?” because such questions interfere with the process.

So what is intuitive painting?

It is an open, flowing channel of expression. A language of creativity unique to each person, just like each of us has a unique voice. Through intuitive painting, you discover and strengthen your own creative language, the one that was always there, waiting to be revealed.

This practice dissolves excessive self-criticism, judgment, and the need to “make something beautiful.” It replaces them with freedom, joy, and the pure movement of creativity. Many people who practice intuitive painting undergo a deep transformation: their entire relationship to creativity changes. Myths they once carried, like the idea that creativity belongs only to a rare few, begin to crumble.

Intuitive painting is, at its core, a language. A language we practice, a language that unfolds. It is also a platform for our emotions, both conscious and unconscious, to find expression and transformation. You don’t need to think about your emotions while painting; they will naturally flow out onto the paper. That is the magic.

As you advance, you will notice that even unprocessed memories or small traumas begin to release and dissolve through this process, always at the pace your psyche is ready for. Intuitive painting is, in fact, a path of emotional transformation. Anger, sadness, longing, love, fear, through painting they are expressed, transformed, and given a new life. They become less of a burden, and we feel more in control of our inner world.

If this sounds confusing, that is a good sign! Intuitive painting is not about “understanding.” It is about entering the game and playing it. Above all, intuitive painting is a game.

Your first assignment:

Take three sheets of Bristol board, size 25×35 cm (about 10×14 inches). Create three paintings, each lasting exactly 8–10 minutes.

  • Each painting must use four different colors (not the same four each time).
  • Fill the entire page, completely, densely, even obsessively. This is very important, the most important part of Intuitive Painting. Make sure you cover the paper totally. It will assist you to have your emotions flow in the creative space without much criticism.
  • Put on music you love (not classical; choose rhythmic, lyrical songs).
  • Paint freely, without overthinking.

When one page is done, put it aside and begin the next. By the time you finish your three paintings, you will have stepped fully into the world of intuitive painting.

Congratulations, and welcome.

Chapter 2: Emotional Transformation

Welcome back. Ready for the next step? This is our second step into the practice of intuitive painting, a deeper dive into the creative space.

I want to begin with something essential, something that, more than twenty years ago, inspired me to develop and share intuitive painting with thousands of people.

The truth is simple and absolute: every human being is born creative.
This is not a belief; it is knowledge. Every person who comes to intuitive painting discovers their own creativity, rich, playful, healing, and unique.

For this discovery to happen, certain conditions must exist. The challenge is that most of us grow up in an environment that suppresses or distorts creativity. We are taught to measure what is “beautiful,” “worthy,” or “acceptable,” and these judgments lead us away from the natural creativity we all knew as children.

Intuitive painting brings us home to that creativity. I invite you to take it with both hands, literally, with your right hand and your left, and surrender to it. Not just to discover your natural way of painting, but to open yourself to creativity itself: spontaneous, intuitive, and free of plans. It is already within you, waiting to flow out. All it needs is space, permission, and freedom from excessive criticism.

When you allow this flow, emotional gifts emerge. Many people describe a dramatic shift in their lives, as if life divides into “before intuitive painting” and “after intuitive painting.” This is not about me, it is about the path. A path so simple that ten or twenty minutes a day can change everything.

Now let us speak about something fundamental: emotional transformation.
This is one of the core reasons intuitive painting exists, it is a tool for emotional transformation.

Emotions carry energy. Sadness weighs us down, anger fills us with force, laughter expands us, longing pushes us toward action. Emotional transformation means taking this energy and giving it a new channel: a creative, healing, life-changing one.

Here lies the great discovery: if I feel, it means my soul is asking me to work. Not with the mind, but with the energy of my emotions. Children know this instinctively: anger can be released through movement, sadness softened through color, frustration turned into creativity.

Through this practice, emotional burdens become lighter. It doesn’t mean every pain disappears, but even a reduction of 10–20 percent makes a huge difference. Without this outlet, we repress, deny, or eventually explode. With it, we transform.

This is why we paint intuitively.

Your second assignment:

Continue with three new paintings on sheets of Bristol board (25×35 cm / about 10×14 inches), using soft pastels (or crayons, if necessary). Best if the paper’s color is black, but it is not necessary.

  • First painting: a loud, explosive burst using four colors, including yellow and black.
  • Second painting: geometric shapes only, circles, triangles, rectangles. Fill each shape with color, using six different colors in total.
  • Third painting: a free painting that begins with a strong outburst and ends with softness and surrender. Play calm, soothing music in the background.

Each painting should fill the entire page completely. Spend 8–10 minutes on each one, not less, not much more, before moving on. Create a quiet workspace for yourself, free of interruptions. If children want to join, wonderful, but focus on doing your own work.

Enjoy the process.

The surprises of intuitive painting are only just beginning.

Chapter 3: Everyone Is Creative

Welcome to the third lesson of intuitive painting at home.

Creation always happens in the present. My “now,” writing these words, meets your “now,” reading them. This shared moment is important, because one of the greatest tasks in human growth is improving our experience of the present. Life unfolds only here and now. We may plan for the future or process the past, but it all happens in the present moment.

Why does this matter here? Because intuitive creation is one of the most powerful ways to anchor ourselves in the present. It invites the creative force to act immediately with what we have, even the parts we are not aware of. Every time we slip away into judgment or criticism, we abandon the present. And every time we escape the criticism and let ourselves flow, add, play, we return more deeply into the present. That is the greatness of this method: it makes the present a place of creativity, not of fear.

At this stage, we continue to work on small sheets (one-eighth of a full sheet). The next lesson will remain the same size, and in lesson five we will double it to quarter sheets. This gradual expansion is important; it allows us to grow steadily.

Remember to put on background music: rhythmic songs with words (not classical). Each painting should last 8–12 minutes. If you are slow, 8 minutes is too short, so speed up. If you finish in 3–4 minutes, slow down, linger, expand. This timing discipline serves everyone.

The theme of this lesson: every person is creative. We touched on it before, but now let us go deeper.

Ask yourself: How creative do I believe I am? What messages did I receive in childhood? What do I hear today? What does creativity mean to me? How much do I live it? Where does it appear in my life, problem solving, work, relationships, parenting?

These are good questions. Not every question needs an immediate answer. Sometimes it is better to leave questions open. Open questions awaken the right brain, the creative brain, more than the left brain, which seeks logic and definition. When we simply ask, what is creativity? we already begin to flow.

Creativity is often felt before it can be defined. It can be sensed as movement, flow, something alive. Just like when we paint or move with music, we don’t need to explain. It simply happens.

Can every person move? Yes. Can every person flow? Yes. If creativity is flow, then every human has it. Alongside the flow there is also stuck-ness. Feelings want to come out, but sometimes they don’t. Yet the presence of stuck-ness does not erase the potential for flow.

Another key aspect is the link between emotion and creation. For me, creation is the language of emotion, movement, colors, shifting shapes. Not a language that has to be logical or planned. Emotions don’t always want to be explained; sometimes they just want to move, to take form, to find color.

The problem is that we have been taught to separate them. “Emotions are for talking about,” we were told, and “creation is only for the talented.” This broke the vital connection. Intuitive painting restores it.

And how does it happen? We don’t stop to ask, “What do I feel? How do I draw it?” That is left-brain thinking. Instead, we let the impulse lead: if I want black or yellow, I take it. If I want to destroy, build, add, work with eyes closed, left hand, both hands, sing or shout, I allow it. The colors and gestures speak my emotions. No need to explain, no need to plan.

For me, art detached from emotion, even if technically precise, is less meaningful. What matters here is the creation that springs from feeling, from the natural flow present in everyone.

So, do we give our emotions a creative stage? That depends on choice, practice, opportunity. But creativity is present in all. Look at any person around you and you will find it.

Your third assignment

Continue with three paintings on Bristol board (25×35 cm / about 10×14 inches), using soft pastels.

  • Painting 1 (black & white only): One half, an intense outburst of anger and frustration. The other half, gentleness, innocence, soft flowing sweetness.
  • Painting 2 (begin with eyes closed): Start forcefully with eyes closed: right hand → left → right → left → both hands. Then open your eyes and continue to build from what appeared.
  • Painting 3 (geometric party): Only geometric shapes, circles, triangles, squares, jumping, overlapping, invading, playing with each other. Feel free to use up to 10 colors.

Each painting must fill the page completely. Work for 8–12 minutes: not less, not much more. This will challenge both the fast and the slow painters in different ways.

At the end, celebrate yourself. Start saving your paintings from now on. Smile at yourself in the mirror when you finish, and if a little pastel dust lands on your cheeks, all the better.

Chapter 4: Walking into the Unknown

Here we are, at lesson four of our journey. The experience may already feel as though it has flown by, and that’s wonderful. This is your course. You can repeat it again and again, and each time will feel different, freer, more surprising. Some of you will feel eager to move on to the next stage after these 12 lessons with soft pastels, and that’s natural. But remember: there’s no rush. You can always return to this stage and discover new treasures.

Intuitive painting takes you to new places every time because it engages the right brain, the realm of imagination, possibility, and creativity. Authentic creativity is limitless: the same instruction can be expressed in a million ways. Give the same assignment to ten people and you’ll see ten completely different results. That’s the joy of working with the right brain, and one reason intuitive painting is so healing. It shifts the balance from left-brain control, planning, criticism, calculation, to right-brain openness and flow.

This fourth lesson concludes the first part of the course, working on small sheets (one-eighth). In the next lesson we’ll double the size to quarter sheets. This expansion is symbolic too: it represents your own growth and ability to stretch wider.

The theme today: walking into the unknown. At first, “the unknown” may sound confusing or frightening. But within intuitive painting, it becomes a safe, joyful, liberating space.

We know the framework: three paintings, 8–12 minutes each, a page fully covered. Within that frame, however, we walk into the unknown. Even if we feel “finished” after a few minutes, the rule is to keep going, add, change, even paint over what you’ve done. The point is to move forward, to trust the process, to let the painting surprise you.

This kind of uncertainty is not paralyzing. It is freedom. Freedom to wander across the page, to let colors and impulses lead you, to play without a fixed plan. Instead of fear, we discover curiosity and joy.

This is the real success of intuitive painting: not whether a picture is “beautiful” or “worthy,” not whether it hangs in a gallery, but the release of emotion. The paintings are a stage where feelings can appear without censorship or explanation. Rarely in life do we have such a space, where expression is free and whole.

Right brain is the language of this freedom. It doesn’t ask for definitions or justifications. It leads us naturally into the unknown, where we discover how safe and alive it can feel.

Your fourth assignment

Create three new paintings on Bristol board (25×35 cm / about 10×14 inches) using soft pastels.

  • First painting: only three colors, black, white, and red. This is your painting of walking into the unknown. Don’t think. Don’t plan. Put on music and let your hand move.
  • Second painting: a “childlike” painting in ten colors. Draw houses, flowers, sky, a sun, but fill the page completely. Let your imagination play: floating houses, multiple suns, giant upside-down flowers.
  • Third painting: divide the page into five strips. In each strip, write down an emotion (pleasant or unpleasant). Assign three colors to each emotion, and paint the strip fully. Use around 15 colors if possible (repeating colors if needed).

Each painting should take 8–12 minutes. Try to lean toward 12, we are already progressing. Always fill the page.

At the end, prepare for the next lesson: three sheets of quarter size (50×35 cm), ideally black Bristol board.

Chapter 5: Intuitive Painting and Self-Love

Here we are, lesson five, and it’s a celebration.
This lesson is a turning point, because we now move into the second stage: painting on quarter sheets. This step is both technical and symbolic. By doubling the size, we expand the space for our expression.

In the first stage, on smaller sheets, we gave our hands room to warm up, to discover the intuitive movement. It was a safe, compact format, allowing the flow to awaken without overwhelming us. Now the hand moves more freely, the intuitive stream has its own rhythm, and we are ready to grow.

When moving to a larger page, first claim it physically. Wander with your hand across the whole sheet, corner to corner, side to side. Let the body adapt. You can begin with doodles before entering the assignment. Remember: the assignment is just a spark to set you in motion. The painting will take you into the unknown anyway.

From this lesson through lesson ten, we will work on quarter sheets with soft pastels. This is the heart of the program. Later, we’ll expand even more with two “bonus” lessons on half sheets. But for now, quarter sheets are our core practice.

The theme of this lesson: self-love.

Intuitive painting is not about making you professional artists. Most people do not come here to “be painters,” nor do they leave with the decision to devote their lives to art. Something else happens, something even more beautiful. They go on living their lives, but their lives change. They are more colorful, more joyful, more creative, more alive. They discover emotional release, transformation, energy, play.

Some people find the courage to make long-awaited changes in life. Others simply flourish more fully without needing a dramatic shift. Intuitive painting touches layers of the psyche that even years of therapy may not reach. Again and again, I have heard students say: “I tried many methods, and only here did something finally move.”

And here we arrive at self-love.
Self-love is what drew me to intuitive painting and what has kept me here. It is inseparable from this practice, whether we notice it or not.

What is self-love? It is the ability to offer myself kindness, to see myself through supportive eyes, to ease my criticism, to forgive myself, to understand myself better. It is the ability to play with who I am joyfully, to enjoy my own company, whether alone or with others. Self-love is a positive relationship with myself.

This is not easy. Most of us grew up with the opposite messages: “You can’t paint, you can’t dance, you can’t write, you can’t act.” A worldview that assumes only a rare few are gifted, and the rest are not.

Intuitive painting tells a different story. Everyone has their own colors, their own movement, their own voice of expression. But to allow it, we must learn to love what comes out. And what comes out is simply me.

When I put color on the page, I appear there. When I move my hand, I express myself there. Intuitive painting teaches me to welcome it all with love. To say yes to everything that I do. This is a training in self-love.

It is the practice of loving myself in all my shades, my emotions, my so-called mistakes, my silliness, my beauty, my flaws. Everything is welcome. Bring your anger, your sadness, your joy, your hope, your despair, your passion. All of it belongs here.

And this creates a powerful circle: I practice self-love through painting. Self-love, in turn, increases my desire and freedom to paint. The painting then strengthens my self-love again. On and on it flows, a cycle of growth and freedom.

Your fifth assignment

Create three quarter-sheet (about 14×20 inches) paintings with soft pastels:

  1. First painting: Divide the sheet into six sections. In each one, paint a different version of madness. Six ways of expressing it, each valid, each unique. Fill the page completely.
  2. Second painting: A flow of love in 12 colors. How? Trust your hand. Put on music and let it happen.
  3. Third painting: How would I paint if I were drunk? Let go of control. Paint in black and white only.

Each painting should last 10–15 minutes. Cover the entire page. Play strong, moving music. And if criticism arises, keep going. We will explore it in depth soon.

Thank you for being here. Now, go paint.

Chapter 6: Intuitive Painting and Self-Criticism

We have reached lesson six, halfway through the first stage of working with soft pastels.

This stage is the breakthrough: the first discovery that we can create directly from our emotions with freedom. The more we give ourselves to it, the more alive it becomes, the more it becomes part of our daily life.

And what a joy it is to now paint on quarter sheets. By the way, whether you keep your paintings or throw them away, it doesn’t matter. You may keep them for a while and look back to see your journey, but not with judgment, only curiosity. Or you may discard them a day or two later. What matters most is that you keep going, that the flow of work continues.

This lesson is dedicated to what may be the very core of intuitive painting: exaggerated self-criticism.

Everyone here has met it. Many of you came precisely because of it. In fact, it was the reason intuitive painting was born in the first place.

I remember myself in my early thirties, in a small apartment, searching for healing. Through creative experiments, I realized how much I was trapped by self-criticism. It stopped me, blocked me, cut me off from expression and freedom. Seeing it clearly was a huge step.

Self-criticism shows up in three stages:

  • Before creating – it prevents us from starting. “You’re not good enough, don’t even try.”
  • During creating – it interrupts the flow. “That will ruin everything, don’t do it.”
  • After creating – it judges harshly, refuses to give credit, dismisses the work.

That is exactly what intuitive painting is designed to bypass. It teaches us to trick the critic, distract it, turn it into part of the game.

How?

  • By limiting time – the critic focuses on the clock, not on quality.
  • By requiring the page to be filled – its energy is redirected: “Make sure there is no white space left.” Criticism becomes creation.
  • By setting a fixed number of paintings – there is no endless debate. The frame is set; inside it, we are free.

And the greatest gift: we are allowed to scribble, to ruin, to cover, to rebuild. Destruction is part of creation. This is healing.

The more we practice, the more we receive this gift in daily life: living with less inner hostility, less judgment. And that is a gift of immeasurable value.

Painting Assignments

First painting – A big scream and a small scream

Divide the quarter sheet into two halves.

On one side, draw a big scream: bold colors, wide strokes, loud energy.
On the other side, draw a small scream: little dots, soft trembling lines, minimal marks.

The task is to move back and forth between the two. Spend time in one, then the other, alternating again and again until both halves are absolutely full. Leave no millimeter blank.

Second painting – The party of criticism creatures

Imagine your self-criticism as a gang of small creatures, funny or grotesque monsters. Now paint them all together, as if they are having a “party.”
Give them all kinds of shapes, big and small, thin and fat, upside down, twisted, stacked on each other.

Fill the entire sheet with them. Play with them, scribble over them, add or erase. Anything goes.

Important: stay with it for a full 10–15 minutes.

Third painting – Painting on painting on painting

This is the classic exercise for working with self-criticism:

  1. Start with a free, energetic painting using 3–4 colors. Fill the entire sheet quickly and with intensity.
  2. After 3–4 minutes, take different colors and paint a completely new picture over the first one, covering it entirely.
  3. After another few minutes, repeat once more with yet another painting in different colors, covering everything that came before.

Each layer should last about 3–4 minutes. Build, destroy, rebuild. Show your inner critic that nothing is forbidden, that this, too, is part of creation.

Chapter 7 – Bringing Myself As I Am

We’ve reached the seventh lesson in our journey with Intuitive Painting. By now you’ve experienced several stages, and you can probably feel how this process is not just about painting, it’s about discovering a new language of connection with yourself. A language of freedom, authenticity, play, and emotions.

The central theme here is bringing myself as I am. It sounds simple, almost obvious, yet it’s one of the greatest challenges. From a very young age, most of us were taught to hide parts of ourselves, to repress emotions, to feel ashamed of certain “colors” in our being, literally and metaphorically. When we face the page, all of that comes up again.

This is where Intuitive Painting becomes so powerful: it doesn’t require beauty; it doesn’t seek a “successful” result. What it demands is truth. The paper is asking us: Bring yourself as you are. Bring your anger, your tears, your laughter, your despair, your hope, your silliness, your passion. Bring everything.

That’s why it is especially important to use all the colors you have. Many people avoid black, or certain “heavy” colors like brown, gray, or dark red. But in Intuitive Painting there are no good or bad colors. Each color represents a part of us. If we avoid a color, we avoid a part of ourselves. So the invitation is: use everything, in abundance. Give space even to the neglected colors, they are waiting to be heard.

In this way, Intuitive Painting becomes a deep practice of self-love. Bringing myself as I am means not being afraid to meet myself in every shade, in every emotion, in every intensity. Sometimes that will show up as a bold smear, sometimes as a delicate line, sometimes as a messy scribble. But the page welcomes it all. There is no teacher grading you, no audience judging. Only you, the paper, the colors, and the music.

Notice what happens during the process: maybe anger rises and you want to pound the color into the page. Maybe tears come. Maybe you laugh, or feel like dancing. Let it all happen. Intuitive Painting is the place where you can be completely free, without masks, without explanations, without censorship.

In our daily lives and relationships, we constantly need to adjust, to hide, to control ourselves. That’s normal, it’s part of living with others. But in order not to lose ourselves inside all those roles, we also need the opposite space, a space where we can be fully authentic. Intuitive Painting is that space.

And as you return to it again and again, practicing freedom with the page, you begin to discover something wonderful: your own unique creative language. Just like everyone has their own handwriting or voice, each of us has a personal visual language. The more you practice, the more this language will reveal itself.

Remember: bringing myself as I am doesn’t mean only bringing the “beautiful” or “acceptable” parts. It means bringing everything. And as we learn to love whatever comes out, we learn to love ourselves.

Painting Instructions – Lesson 7

Painting One – Puzzle/ Mosaic

Take a quarter-sheet of paper. Begin with a small shape, any shape: a square, circle, or triangle. Fill it completely with color. Next to it, add another shape, fill it. Continue like this, one shape after another, until the page is full, a colorful mosaic of many parts.

In this exercise, you are not meant to destroy or explode. This is a building exercise. Respect each shape, fill it thoroughly, and keep moving on. (10–15 minutes).

Painting Two – Forces of Darkness and Forces of Light

Divide the page into two halves. In one half: the forces of darkness. Use as many colors as you want, wild and intense. Give yourself full permission to be messy, raw, even “nasty.” In the other half: the forces of light. Here, restrict yourself to only three colors. Let them flow calmly, softly.
When both halves are full, start blending them together. Let the light and darkness meet, merge, clash, and interact. Continue until your time is up (10–15 minutes).

Painting Three – Free Long Painting

On a new page, paint freely, with no plan, for 10–15 full minutes. Use all your colors, especially the ones you tend to neglect. Keep moving, don’t stop, don’t freeze, don’t overthink. Switch hands, close your eyes, sing, scribble, layer, destroy and rebuild, whatever comes. If you catch yourself trying to “protect” a nice drawing, ruin it! That is the practice. Work until the page feels fully alive with you.

Chapter 8 – Expressing the Hardest Things

We’re now entering the eighth lesson of the Intuitive Painting journey. At this stage, something inside you has already begun to shift. Your hand moves more freely, your fear of “doing it wrong” has softened, and the page no longer feels like a test but like a home.

Intuitive Painting is not only an exercise in creativity it’s a gateway to the inner world. And this gateway allows us to reach places that words can never touch. There are experiences too painful, too complex, too raw to express through language. But through color, movement, and rhythm, the soul finds a safe way to speak.

This lesson deals with one of the greatest human challenges: to express the hardest things. Not only to release them, but to transform them. To turn pain into growth, darkness into motion, silence into creation.

And What makes Intuitive Painting so effective for this? It combines freedom with structure. We work within clear boundaries, fill the page, respect the time, complete the sequence, and within that container, we have absolute freedom. This combination creates a safe field where the psyche dares to open.

In that space, something magical happens. We touch pain without being swallowed by it. We move with the emotion, not against it. Through movement and color, we play with what once felt unbearable. And in that playfulness lies healing.

We are not here to understand our paintings. Trying to understand too soon may close the channel again. We are here to allow the process, to let feelings flow through form. Anger, shame, sadness, fear, jealousy, grief, guilt, all are welcome. Even the forbidden subjects: death, violence, abuse, illness, sexuality. Society needs limits, and that’s good. But inside our inner world, we need a space beyond those limits.

And if something feels “too much,” trust that your hand will stop. The psyche knows how to protect itself. Our role is not to force anything, but to allow what wants to move, to move.

Each time you express something difficult, you reclaim a piece of your power. You begin to see that pain is not an enemy, it is a form of energy. When expressed, it transforms. Anger becomes vitality. Sadness becomes tenderness. Fear becomes curiosity.

Now let’s paint.

Painting Instructions – Lesson 8

Painting One – The Big Ugly Monster

Take a quarter-sheet of paper. Use black as your base color and add four more colors of your choice. Paint a monster, not a cartoon monster, but a real one. Let it stare at you, maybe disturb you. Make it huge, strange, twisted, or unshapely. Fill the entire page, no white space left. Don’t try to make it “nice.” Let it be ugly, wild, grotesque. This is a dialogue with your hidden, suppressed sides.

Painting Two – When Sadness Dances with Love

Here we invite two emotions that rarely meet: sadness and love. Use at least eight colors. Let the music guide your movement. Start with sadness, soft, fluid, touching. Then allow love to enter, bright, flowing, embracing. Mix them, overlap them, or let them swirl together. Whatever emerges is perfect.

Painting Three – The Transformation of Emotion

This is a process painting in four stages, all on the same page: 1. Outburst of Anger – dark colors, fast lines, sharp gestures. Let your body express the intensity fully. 2. Transition to Dance – change colors, move with rhythm, feel freedom. 3. Return to Aggression – back to wildness, strength, raw energy. Let it roar. 4. Sweet Flow for Closure – lighter tones, gentle touches, a peaceful ending.

The whole process lasts about 30–45 minutes. Keep moving. Don’t stop too early. If you feel tears, let them come. If laughter arises, let it. You’re not performing; you’re transforming. When finished, resist the urge to analyze. Let the paintings rest. Look at them the next day, and you may notice that something inside you has quietly healed.

Chapter 9 – The Magic of the “Ugly” Painting

The magical journey of Intuitive Painting isn’t always “magical.” At times it’s sad, at times infuriating, and very often it simply brings out what is actually there — and invites us to meet it. That’s precisely the point. We want to meet the full range of our emotions, because Intuitive Painting lets us work with them through creative flow — a flow without explanations, without interpretation, without pauses, without judgment. Every emotion, even the most extreme, strange, distorted, or painful, needs transformation through creative action. That is what we give ourselves here.

We’re in lesson nine. This session and the next will complete the quarter-sheet phase; the final two lessons shift to half-sheet, a larger format that prepares us for more advanced steps. Today’s theme is dear to my heart: The Magic of the “Ugly” Painting. It may sound provocative, even rebellious, but it sits at the very core of this work.

Why “magic”? Because when we truly surrender, Intuitive Painting takes us to places everyday life cannot reach. It stretches our freedom, softens taboos, lets us touch the “forbidden” safely, and reveals that within what we once called “ugly” lives a tremendous amount of creative energy. In truth, there is no “ugly painting,” certainly not in this non-judgmental space where the psyche opens and tells its story in full color. “Ugliness” is a relative label, often a projection of fear. As we approach — a person, a part of ourselves, a painting — labels dissolve and inner beauty begins to shine.

So why paint “ugly”? Because the very permission to paint “not pretty,” “not correct,” “not acceptable” breaks ancient chains. When it is allowed — even required — to “ruin,” to scribble, to clash colors, to overload and disturb, suppressed parts finally get to come out. Fear transforms into power; shame becomes play; embarrassment twists into laughter. That is the magic: stepping through an intimidating gate that turns out to be a doorway to healing.

If you’re new to this, you may feel stuck or uncomfortable at first. That’s normal. With practice and full-hearted devotion to “doing it wrong,” a breakthrough happens. Many end up loving their so-called “ugly” paintings most of all — because that is where the raw pulse of life beats. Remember: this is not a performance. It’s a personal lab of freedom. Put on music, work continuously, fill the page completely, and allow yourself to be surprised.

Painting Instructions – Lesson 9 (Quarter Sheet, Soft Pastels)

Painting 1 – Free “Ugly” with All Colors
Use a quarter sheet of Bristol board and all your soft pastels (the more, the better). Put on energizing music. Work 10–15 minutes nonstop. Aim to make it ugly on purpose: overload, layer, clash, collide, smear, cross, “ruin.” Whenever you feel the urge to rescue or beautify — do the opposite. Keep going until the page is totally covered.

Painting 2 – Geometric “Ugly” with Ten Colors
Pick 10 colors and restrict yourself to geometric forms only (circles, squares, triangles, grids, stripes, stacked angles). The challenge is to stay geometric and intensify the ugliness: absurd overlaps, choking densities, broken symmetries, extreme scales. Fill the whole page. Work a continuous 10–15 minutes.

Painting 3 – Eyes-Closed “Ugly” (Layered Timed Sequence)
Lightly tape the sheet to the table with masking tape so it won’t slide. Set out many open sticks ready to switch. Music on. Close your eyes and begin.

  • Minutes 0–2: first color, eyes closed, dominant hand.
  • 2–3: switch color, keep eyes closed.
  • 3–4: switch to the non-dominant
  • 4–6: make it uglier — pressure changes, unexpected directions, bold crossings.
  • ~6: open eyes for 10–15 seconds, greet the chaos with love, pick a new color, close eyes again.
  • 6–9: continue eyes closed, switch color about every minute, switch hands again if you like.
  • 9–13: open eyes and work another 3–4 minutes; now you don’t have to stay ugly — finish however you wish (and still cover the page completely).

Throughout: keep breathing, let the body move, don’t peek outside the planned windows, and don’t “fix it pretty.” The focus is freedom.

Essentials for all three paintings:
• Cover the entire page — densely, obsessively.
• Music that sparks movement and feeling.
• Unbroken work time — no consultations with the inner critic.
• No “pretty/ugly” — only truth in motion.

When you’re done, don’t analyze. Let the paintings rest. Look again tomorrow; often, a new kind of beauty appears exactly where “ugly” used to be.

Chapter 10 – Finding True Freedom

We’re at Lesson Ten of the first Intuitive Painting course, and I truly love this opening course. I once called it “Breakthrough,” and that’s exactly how it appeared to me: Intuitive Painting “revealed itself” in a period when I was searching for ways to deal with my own pain. Soft pastels simply appeared, there were some at home, I bought a bit more, I played, and I discovered. I discovered the abundance of healing and expression available through this material.

Before I developed Intuitive Painting, I was one of those considered “talented at drawing.” My mother is a painter; I was on the school decorations committee. And yet I could not make a free painting. I wasn’t able to. I had zero freedom. I drew beautiful trees, beautiful faces, lots of beautiful things. I had the talent, but no freedom. I didn’t dare step outside my own lines.

When I discovered Intuitive Painting, boom, everything shattered, and everything rebuilt itself into far more freedom: a primal, visceral emotional expression, straight from the belly. I stopped caring about “pretty/not pretty.” What mattered was the ecstasy, the strong healing experience that came from playing with color. That’s the preface. Today is Lesson Ten, our last time on quarter sheets. We’re having a “farewell party” with the quarter sheet, and nothing fits Lesson Ten better than: Finding True Freedom.

Let’s devote a few minutes to the word freedom. Freedom is deeply relative, one of the most relative, non-absolute ideas there is. What one person calls freedom, another might not. Is freedom just the absence of structure? Is lack of structure truly freedom? Not necessarily.

So what is freedom? A vacation? No rules, no limits, nothing at all? To focus, I’ll share my personal definition, acknowledging it can’t be entirely complete: for me, freedom is the ability to realize my desire in a given moment.

I have the means, motivation, willingness, and courage to act on my desire. But that’s not enough: am I actually connected to my desire? Do I allow it to be legitimate inside me? Do I grant myself the freedom to feel desire? Often we carry desires we don’t even permit ourselves to feel.

Are we free then? Or do we carry an inner prison that keeps us from reaching certain desires, because we fear them, because they go “too far,” because they suggest “absurd” things we don’t dare imagine—yet they are still our desires?

So, consider freedom as a process: we can improve our degree of freedom relative to what is. There are always constraints, livelihood, children, obligations that shape our days. How much freedom do I have within all that? I say: there is freedom. Freedom is the realization of desire according to what is available, and in truth, every desire is always realized only within some context, because some frame always exists.

Intuitive Painting illustrates this search for freedom. In Hebrew, the word for freedom (chofesh) contains the root for “search” (lachapesh). Is a free human one who is able to search? I believe yes. Through Intuitive Painting we search for our freedom. Don’t take your current definition of freedom for granted, it can open, loosen, refine, expand. What looks like freedom today may look different in a year, two, or five.

Let’s see freedom as an ongoing journey toward a growing capacity to realize our authentic desires. Some desires aren’t currently attainable or accessible; thus we journey to expand our freedom. And when we do reach them, will we have motivation, tools, means, willingness, time, courage? These too require searching: work, cultivation, practice. Intuitive Painting gives us a training ground to practice freedom: to sense it, to know it, to realize it on the page. It’s symbolic, yes, it mirrors life rather than replaces it, but it equips us to look for freedom beyond the page as well.

Here, we may ask: What do I long for right now? Which color calls me? How do I want to dance with the page? Which desire scares me to express? Let’s explore it. Perhaps that exploration grants me a bit more freedom. This is one of the beautiful reasons Intuitive Painting exists: a gym for the soul, freedom training. And the beauty? You don’t need to be a renowned artist, or a grad of any academy. The creative tools are in your hands, right now. What a gift.

So let’s take Intuitive Painting as a platform for freedom-seeking: to explore it, move toward it, test it, challenge it, expand it. That’s our place, here and now. And now, on to the painting instructions, naturally centered on freedom.

Painting Instructions – Lesson 10 (Quarter Sheet, Soft Pastels)

Painting 1 – “Freedom Research” in Six Panels
Divide the page into six sections (they don’t have to be equal). In each section, paint freedom differently, different colors, movement, approach. Time target: 10–15 minutes minimum. Aim to explore contrasting “angles” of freedom, wild/restrained, dark/light, sharp/rounded, dense/airy, and cover the entire page.

Painting 2 – “Dismantling the Prison”
Choose an image of un-freedom, a prison, wall, bars, thicket. Paint it, and then dismantle it: breaches, cracks, collapses, an exit into freedom. Use at least 6–8 colors (more is welcome). The challenge is to show a process: the prison decays while liveliness and free movement rise. Fill the whole page within a similar timeframe.

Painting 3 – “My Prison / My Freedom” + Integration
Split the page in two. On one half: “My prison today”, where I feel limited/held back, with a distinct palette and temperament. On the other half: “My freedom today”, where I feel open/flowing/dancing, with a very different palette and temperament. You may mark a dividing line (even a “wall”) between them. Once both halves are fully covered, begin gently to blend/bridge them for a few more minutes, overlaps, crossings, transitions. The implicit message: our true freedom is composed of both closed and open parts; creative work connects them.

This concludes our quarter-sheet phase. For the next lesson, prepare two half-sheets of black Bristol board and your soft pastels. Don’t rush to buy new sticks—you likely have many broken pieces; work with them as they are. Small pieces are the most fun, the best, the most meaningful. Thank you, and see you very soon. Go paint.

Chapter 11 – Getting Lost Home

Lesson 11 of Intuitive Painting, we’re “big kids” now. After ten lessons, even in a standard workshop format, we’ve gone through a process. We’ve experienced, shifted, and most likely some irreversible changes have already occurred. In other words, as you devoted yourself to the work, you moved into a new level of awareness, more freedom of creative expression, emotions living less inside and more expressed through creative flow.

We’re ready to move on. The more we practice Intuitive Painting, the more we see how it is a platform, a mirror to life, down to the smallest details. We can bring anything into Intuitive Painting; it won’t “solve everything,” but our way of meeting life changes for the better because we have this tool.

The page doesn’t judge; it welcomes every expression with love. It invites us to go the farthest and the nearest, the strangest and the most distorted, the narrowest and the most expansive. It says: come grow here; come discover your creativity here. This is a profound privilege one must choose, through the tools offered here and by others who work similarly. It’s how we find strengths we didn’t know we had and expand into more abundant living.

Now to this specific lesson: we’re moving to a half-sheet. I’ll fold the technical notes into the instructions. The theme: Getting Lost Home. Logically speaking, if we got lost, we’re far from home and want to return, being lost is unpleasant, the path is unclear, everything unfamiliar. Yet in Intuitive Painting we become like a turtle, we discover that our home travels with us. The more we dare to get lost and relax our fear of being far from “home” (as a metaphor), the more we realize we are at home, within ourselves.

To feel “at home” is to feel comfortable, pleasant, familiar, loved; to feel “this is my place.” To truly grow and expand, to truly find home, we must agree to get lost: to pass through the fears of tangle and uncertainty and strangeness, and keep working creatively with those difficulties and that fog, keep moving, keep painting, until we reach a new freedom.

A freedom that says: wherever I am, if I am with myself, that is my home. The page reflects this: it is my home. I can always bring myself, whatever I am. I may be very sad after a drama or a quarrel, the page receives me. I go getting lost home inside it: I may start from a very unclear place, move toward the page, wander not knowing where, add color upon color, move in ways I didn’t expect, continue to move, search, work, get lost, and arrive home.

To get lost means to let go of control: let go of planning, of needing to make it “pretty,” of needing applause, of needing the painting to be “worthy,” of needing to “succeed” or “win.” Lose control; let your hands do their work, and you’ll arrive at a sweet experience that’s hard to describe in words. When you are there, you’ll know: you’ll feel at home.

At some point the inner critic loosens; you and the painting become one. You’ve gone completely lost, and you’re home. Emotionally, there is no way to arrive home without getting lost: metaphorically, it is the release from chains that separate me from myself, and thus from my true home. That’s why we must get lost; we must go to the intuitive place for a while to find ourselves; there’s no other way. Yes, I give instructions and you may think about them, but you received the brief, go. Get lost. You’ll find the instruction on the way. If you agree to set out without knowing where it leads, you will arrive home. Getting lost to get home, this is a metaphor, a mindset, a method, a life philosophy. Not that we must always be lost, but it is part of our approach: to step into creation and life without knowing, into the mist, and there find our path, our home. That is precisely what we practice in Intuitive Painting.

Now the instructions (work with Soft Pastels on half-sheet Bristol):

Painting Instructions – Lesson 11 (Half Sheet, Soft Pastels)

Painting 1 – “Conquer the Size” (Half Sheet)
We’ve leapt from quarter to half sheet, a substantial step with more body movement. Total time: 18–22 minutes. Phase A – Wandering & Experiment: for at least 10–12 minutes, roam across the page with all your colors and music: flowing movement and staccato, geometric forms, scribbles and stains, right hand and left hand, eyes closed and eyes open, even both hands together, lots of experiments. Phase B – Filling & Closure: in the remaining time, fill the entire page and “bring some order” to the big composition—no empty spots.

Painting 2 – “A Wedding of Forces” (Light–Dark)
One instruction; don’t overthink, let the psyche paint it: a marriage between forces of light and forces of darkness (good and “evil”). Unlike a half/half piece, here there is no split; it’s a continuous meeting of the two forces, play, movement, connection, for the full twenty minutes. Put on music. Allow the painting to change again and again. Give real attention to both sides and let them connect. Why is this crucial? Because it’s a painting about healing: receiving the “negative” parts in me, joining them with the “positive,” and moving together creatively.

That’s Lesson 11. The next session is the final, celebratory lesson of this program. Thank you for being here. Go paint, and I’ll see you in the last class.

Chapter 12 – What Is Your Intuition Saying?

We’ve reached Lesson 12, the final session of this stage. I warmly suggest doing this course more than once. In the intuitive space, the same prompt can manifest in countless forms because we keep growing, opening, evolving, and creation keeps evolving with us. One assignment can unfold in infinite ways. It’s a delight to discover how creative we truly are through Intuitive Painting.

And because Intuitive Painting is a space for self-healing, it’s valuable to repeat it: each round lets you enter deeper layers of healing. There are follow-up courses for those who wish to go further, but for now let’s stay with this moment. This last lesson will also be on half-sheet Bristol, I trust you’ve settled into the format by now.

This session asks a precise question: What is your intuition saying? People often ask me: What is intuition? Where is it? How does it act? What makes this “intuitive”? I leave the question open and invite you to study intuition, because it’s vital. During Intuitive Painting, intuition speaks, through the act of creating. The freer we are in our painting, the more open we are to intuitive ideas. We cultivate this in a playful, pictorial field, and with practice what we learn here begins to express itself in many other areas of life.

So the live question is: What is your intuition saying, right now? How much has intuition already become, through this training, a significant force in your life? Here’s the takeaway I want you to carry forward: intuition expresses itself through creative action. Intuition is a kind of knowing, a storehouse of good ideas, that sometimes sees ahead and invites us onto a path before we “understand” it. But if we don’t act, intuition weakens. Intuition asks for a step whose outcome we don’t fully know. It asks for the creative, daring side, jumping into deep water, trusting we’ll learn to swim.

In that sense, intuition is always paired with creativity. Without a bold creative action, intuition has little value; without the action, it tends to hide, shrink, and disappear.

And the movement is not one-way. It’s a cycle: intuition → creative act → more intuition → more creation. The more I heed intuition and act immediately, in painting and in life, the more feedback and input I receive from intuition for what comes next. This is why our work comes in sequences: painting to painting, lesson to lesson. Once I remove the wall between impulses/desires/intuition and creative expression, a pleasurable, healing flow begins, one that opens life itself.

Practice makes intuition natural. It’s not mystical, not above life; it is life. Intuition is meant to be applied; otherwise, it withers. Intuitive Painting facilitators practice this by giving intuitive prompts, turning intuition into creative action. Untaken intuition is like knowledge that never existed.

So here is today’s larger question, aimed at your whole life, not only the page: What is your next bold step? What adventure might your soul take now that it has trained to be more creative with intuition? Less judgment about “pretty,” that’s not the point. The real beauty is the link between intuition and action. The more we embody that beauty, the more generously we can ask: What is my intuition saying now? What creative step is calling me? Keep asking—and keep practicing modalities that empower intuition by giving it a free, non-judgmental channel of expression, like Intuitive Painting. That’s what intuition needs.

We close this course with joy and gratitude. Thank you for being here. We’ll end with two large half-sheet paintings, about 18–22 minutes each:

Painting One – “The Great Bloom”
Imagine an immense, abundant field, flowers, grasses, foliage, trees, overflowing with color. “The Great Bloom” is an invitation to plenitude. Use all your colors. Begin from the image, then allow the painting to wander away from it, let new associations arrive. The main thing: let the abundance work through you. Cover the entire page with layered movement and richness.

Painting Two – “My Great Freedom” (fully free)
This is completely free, an alive summary of all that happened here, but don’t treat it as a “summary.” Put on music (a few tracks in a row), pick up all your soft pastels, and let the word freedom, and the felt sense of freedom, live through you. Paint what flows and also what doesn’t. You may include words, stripes, stains, shapes. Fill the whole page; work steadily to the end of time. This is your home—do what feels right.

There are a million more prompts we could add, naturally we didn’t include them all, and that’s fine. You can discover them yourself or join follow-up spaces. What matters is to keep going, to seek and initiate the next creative step—through Intuitive Painting, Intuitive Writing, Intuitive Dance, or bold intuitive life decisions. Take your freedom. Take your great bloom.

Thank you for being here, now go to your next paintings, and I’ll meet you in the ones to come.