This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Artists’ Painting Technique, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical. It will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create an extraordinarily painted work of art.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
INHIBITION is one of the most powerful tools in the Alexander Technique. It gives the artist a tool to change any aspect of her painting technique and posture that doesn’t work with what works. Inhibition helps the artist identify what is interfering with the artist creating the most user friendly painting technique and posture possible, and then to be able to change what isn’t working.
INHIBITION ALLOWS THE ARTIST TO LET GO OF WHAT ISN’T WORKING, AND TO REPLACE IT WITH WHAT DOES WORK IN PAINTING.
Inhibition is what you do after you’ve identified what is not working in your painting technique. Let me explain. By the time an artist has discovered, after years of painting, that there are aspects of the artist’s technique and posture that are interfering with the artist’s ability to paint whatever she would like, these destructive habits are as central to the artist’s technique as the productive ones are.
So, how do you throw out the bath water, without throwing out the baby? You identify and list what is compromising your painting, and you also make a second list of what it is that works in your painting technique, and you only keep the good list.
There are the typical big postural problems – slumped or over-arched posture, obvious tension throughout the body, from hands to legs. Then there are the much more subtle problems, which may be a matter of degree. What I mean, is there may be postural and technique things that you do that are not obvious to anyone but an Alexander Technique teacher.
Ex: If right before the artist paints, she locks her neck, then this can be pretty invisible to most people. If right before the artist paints, she locks her neck, this can be almost undetectable. If every time, the artist is painting something that requires an incredibly steady hand she hunkers down, this can compress the nerves that originate at the spinal cord.
So, what is the act of inhibition or inhibiting? If right before you do what you have always done when you paint, just before you paint, you stop and choose to do something new, then you have just inhibited what isn’t serving you.
Ex: Just as the artist is about to paint, she notices she is locking her neck. The artist stops – doesn’t paint. She now chooses not to lock her neck, and right after that new choice, she then paints.
What I have just described is inhibition or inhibiting a habit. It very subtle and very powerful, because for the first time, the artist has chosen not to initiate painting with a bad habit.
She has chosen to paint without unconscious tension and compression of the spine. Bringing this into the artist’s awareness is moving painting away from being something you fix, to being something where you are truly experiencing all of your subtle habits, good and bad, you have painted with. Now you have the tool, INHIBITION, that will allow you to perceive and choose which habits you want to keep or release.
THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE DOES TWO EXTRAORDINARY THINGS. IT TRULY RAISES YOUR AWARENESS OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING WHEN YOU PAINT TO A LEVEL THAT SHOWS YOU HOW YOU COMPROMISE YOUR TALENT, AND IT GIVES YOU THE TOOLS TO STOP DOING THIS.
