How an idea becomes a finished painting

I'm currently teaching a workshop that helps artists take a piece from start to finish. Before this, I never really thought about how to explain the process. Early in my Disney days, when I first started painting my own stuff, someone asked me, how do you know what to paint? I shrugged and said, I just know. But the truth is, I didn't know. Images came to me and I blurted them out onto the canvas. I started a painting before knowing what I was going to do, and somehow blundered my way to the end.

By now, I follow a systemic process. Some of it I learned from teachers along the way—but most of it came through practice and experience. It's what I try to share with my students so they can incorporate what works for them.

It starts with the concept. That vague idea. For me, it's usually a feeling. Sometimes a poem. Or a quick thumbnail. This particular painting (which I've shared about before) started with a phrase.

I was driving on the 5 through central California, listening to a story about how butterflies form. The caterpillar hangs upside down, sheds its skin to form a chrysalis around itself, then dissolves into goo. Once the destruction is complete, other cells (called imaginal disks) take over and create a new form. Each of those cells contains a map of the butterfly.

"Map of the Butterfly!" It exploded in my brain. I knew I had to create a whole series out of it.

So it begins with a feeling and raw color, with no plan in mind. The beginning needs to be free and fun—so we're "hooked" enough to keep going.

Because next comes the struggle. This is when the vague idea must become something specific. Of all the possible outcomes, only one will emerge. It's sometimes hard to know which one is right; or how to render it. I take my image into Photoshop so I can try out different angles.

I also listen for signs. Little inspirations that let me know what comes next. In this case, I was reading "Is a River Alive?" by Robert McFarlane, in which he talked about Lidar maps of riverbeds. Those beautiful images haunted me—they had to go into the painting.

I chose a specific butterfly pattern—and as it emerged, I was working on a classical-style painting, filled with jewels, lace, and embroidered fabric. I wanted to see if I could make the wings look encrusted with gems. It was holding what looked at first like a giant pineapple, which I turned into a globe.

But the caterpillar refused to release her furry appearance. As I danced back and forth between exerting and surrender, the story took shape. It's like writing: you create characters, then they write the story. In our paintings, the shapes that emerge decide what comes next. And they tell us what we're creating, not the other way around.

So, this became a caterpillar clinging to the world it knows, resisting transformation even as it's happening all around. The riverbeds shift, the lace disorganizes into organic forms, the jewels bulge and dissolve, the legs and tail grow, yet the old form holds on tight. It became the story of my own psyche as I navigated personal challenges that mirrored the caterpillar's reluctant metamorphosis. It also expressed so much of what I'm seeing in the world: fear of change, clinging to what doesn't work anymore, beauty in the face of destruction, environmental shifts.

This is what I spent all those years training my hand to accomplish: letting go of skills so the Muse can take over and paint the story for me.

Art Heals

John Muir wrote, "when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. Just after I finished writing this newsletter, I came across this article in the Marginalian about Robert McFarlane's children's book, illustrated by Jackie Morris. In the realm of the Muse, connections like this happen all the time.

With love and light,

Maggie

PS Whenever you’re ready to start working with me, here are three ways:

1. Feeling stuck or lost in your work? Watch Uncover your Purpose as an Artist to reconnect with what motivates you to create.

2. Want to learn the basics of drawing and find your unique voice, without pressure or doubt? Sign up for my next 6-week online workshop, "Draw Like You Mean It." Lessons include weekly office hours and one-on-one guidance from me.

3. Not sure where to begin? Schedule a free 30-minute consultation and I’ll ask you the single most important question to help you become the artist you’ve always wanted to be.