trusting your instincts Archives

PAINTING from EMBODIED INTENTION Online Workshop Starts Jan 12, 2027

Val Nelson on October 30, 2026

Join the waitlist: val@valnelson.ca

Tuesday evenings: 5-7:30pm

Level: Intermediate / Advanced

Materials: Oil or acrylic

Nurture and tune in to your unique artistic voice, connect with like-minded artists, and complete at least one personal painting project suitable for hanging or gifting, in this immersive series of six online painting sessions with Val as your supportive guide.

What you will experience in this workshop:

• Each session begins with a few moments of calming breath-work and intention-setting

• After a brief group share, we then take a brief inspirational dive into the work of a master painter, from which we will make a ten-minute warm-up drawing

•The rest of the session is dedicated to painting time with custom input from your art coach

• At the end of the session we do a supportive group share

• Max 8 people

What you get when you reserve your seat:

• Regular structured painting time within a supportive painting group

• Expert guidance where you can get your questions answered in real time

• Clarify and learn to trust your artistic voice

• Improve your painting skills – colour mixing, brushwork, value, composition

• Complete at least one painting you can hang or gift with pride

• Valuable feedback and inspiration from your cohort

• A completed painting to hang on your wall

Some additional offering are in the works, so stay tuned!

Testimonials

“I liked the small group, the video follow-up, your personal advice & suggestions.” – Online student

“Val is generous with her knowledge, and she is encouraging and pragmatic. I would recommend Val’s course to any artist.” – MH

Biography Val Nelson is a Vancouver-based multidisciplinary artist with over 30 years of professional experience across painting, drawing, video, and performance. A graduate with Honours from Emily Carr College of Art and Design, Val’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, and is held in major collections including the Canada Council Art Bank, Surrey Art Gallery, and the Agnes Etherington Art Centre.

Since 2009, Val has taught painting through workshops, courses, and international retreats, and has been a guest instructor at institutions including Emily Carr University and Gordon Smith Gallery. Known for her intuitive, process-driven approach to teaching that includes a strong technical foundation, Val supports artists in deepening their practice, strengthening their visual language, and building lasting creative momentum.

Contact: 778-865-2650 val@valnelson.ca Website: https://valnelson.ca/ www.instagram.com/valnelsonpainter

Itness

Val Nelson on September 9, 2015

Now that the cooler weather of Fall is here, I’m so grateful to be able to get back into the studio and paint paint paint. A little study I made last winter of a scene on my breakfast table has been calling to me. I painted it on an old envelope.

Val Nelson, V5Y, 4.25 x 6.25 inches, oil on PVA on paper, 2015

The appearance of objects, and their quiet presence or “itness”, has long been something that really gets to me. I wasn’t sure about this humble image, but after much deliberation I decided there’s something about it I need to pay attention to.

So here’s a painting I made this week:

Val Nelson, A Room in Mount Pleasant, oil on canvas, 14 x 18 inches, 2015

And I started another one:

Day One: A Room in Mount Pleasant #2

For the next several months all I want to do is immerse myself in the wordless process of looking, and recording what I see. I’ve been tussling with a purist notion that I must work only from life; but the practicality of it has not been easy to deal with. The dimensions of my apartment limit me from painting there with an easel; a way around it could have been working very small, but to be honest I get very claustrophobic with all my painting gear cluttering up the place. My home is a sanctuary, where I can rest. So the solution is of course

photography.

This past year of working off and on from life has really helped me. Observing how light changes in a space over time informs how I now see colour, and I realize I have more freedom to mess around with what goes on in the rectangle. At the same time my drawing is getting better.

And my Ipad and Iphone now have those updated apps that have much better options for image correction.

You can see I’ve put grid marks on the canvas above. Having watched Antonio Garcia Lopez paint in the film El Sol del Mebrillo by Victor Erice I realized that within extreme control (measuring), one can then have great freedom (painterly interpretation). But Garcia doesn’t like working from photography. I’m okay with acknowledging I live in the 21st century and can use any technology I want, as did Bonnard, Vuillard, Degas, and those guys who probably used the camera obscura (Vermeer, Caravaggio). However, so far I’m not interested in actually projecting and tracing. I like drawing too much, and I feel like something interesting happens when I get things slightly wrong even though I’m trying to get it right.

Neil Gaiman: Make Good Art

Val Nelson on June 9, 2012

This seems to be the week of excellent tips from friends on inspiring videos. Interesting that both of the ones I am posting are of fellows from the UK.

Recently writer Neil Gaiman was invited to address the University of the Arts Class of 2012. It’s incredibly inspiring for anyone who needs encouragement to keep on making art. Watch this.

There is beauty in the world. -Macy Gray

Val Nelson on July 6, 2010

Macy Gray, on a CBC radio interview yesterday with Jian Gomeshi, stated that she doesn’t pay attention to the numbers. She commented that as soon as producers focussed on marketing to teenagers, the music industry started to suffer. Gray, now in her forties, feels that there is plenty to say with her music to people who are a little older. In order to be true to her own voice, she “went back to basics” to produce her new record, “The Sellout”; the basics for her means making great music. This video is proof that she is onto something. Thank you, Macy Gray.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qX7ZsxD3Ik]

Go and make stuff

Val Nelson on January 26, 2010

Fred Astaire on making it work

Val Nelson on November 24, 2009

According to Hollywood legend, a screen test report on Fred Astaire for RKO Pictures, now lost along with the test, is reported to have read: “Can’t sing. Can’t act. Balding. Can dance a little.”

Whether or not the story is accurate, David O. Selznick, who had signed Astaire to RKO and commissioned the test, stated in a memo “I am uncertain about the man, but I feel, in spite of his enormous ears and bad chin line, that his charm is so tremendous that it comes through even on this wretched test.”

Through hardwork and extreme dedication Astaire managed to make it all look easy. The rest, as we know, is history. Below is a brief moment from Fred’s stellar career.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTN-NPtNOHU&feature=related]

Fred Astaire on making it work

Val Nelson on November 24, 2009

Through hardwork and extreme dedication Astaire managed to make it all look easy. The rest, as we know, is history. Below is a brief moment from Fred’s stellar career.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTN-NPtNOHU&feature=related]

Trusting your instincts

Val Nelson on May 5, 2009

Jonathan Adler interior

If Jonathan Adler had listened to his pottery professor at art school, he would have quit being an artist and got a job as a lawyer. Luckily for us, he didn’t take her advice. Instead, he parlayed his wacky and shameless ideas into a hugely successful design career.

Everyone else may have already seen this, but since I don’t have cable, I just discovered Adler and his book My Prescription for Anti-Depressive Living in the library on the weekend. Along with images of his delicious and uplifting designs, he peppers humorous anecdotes and strong opinions throughout the book. Below is an excerpt with Adler’s take on the contemporary artworld today, and his philosophy on design.

“When I look at the artworld today, I get pretty depressed. I think that somewhere along the way, people were tricked into believing that art has to be incomprehensible and skill-free and ugly. I totally reject that idea. I want my work to be communicative and beautiful and, I hope, impactful on an emotional level before an intellectual level.”

Jonathan and his talented window-dresser husband live happily together with their dog, Liberace.

The new romanticism?

Val Nelson on April 24, 2009

Tim Gardner, Nick and Holly, 2008,watercolor, 10 x 14 inches

Tim Gardner, Nick and Holly, 2008, watercolor, 10 x 14 ins

Tim Gardner’s painting exhibition on now at Vancouver’s Contemporary Art Gallery affirms for me something I have been feeling for some time now. Could it be that a new sincerity, indeed a new romantic movement is afoot?

Gardner’s small watercolor mountain vistas and light-drenched children’s playground reveal a sensitivity that seems to have been undervalued in recent trends. True, his more typical painting of a pal giving the finger to the photographer’s camera while resting at the summit of a hike, and a homeless man picking up trash, adds edge to the exhibition, but then the glow from birthday candles on his mother’s face bring one back to a warmth and empathy for his subjects.

With the new pragmatic “get things done” spirit in Washington, and the economic downturn forcing us all to look at what is truly important to us, I am wondering if this will encourage an opening up in the artworld to more heartfelt subjects. Perhaps Gardner is onto something.

Tim Gardner is represented by 303 Gallery in New York.

The Pleasures of Art

Val Nelson on April 7, 2009

In these difficult times, looking at and making art can help us get back in touch with the best things that humans are capable of–– a sense of play, a sense of excitement in the creative act.

The following excerpt, from David Hockney’s book, That’s the Way I See It, reveals the artist’s philosophy on viewing and making art:

I have always believed that art should be a deep pleasure. I think there is a contradiction in an art of total despair, because the very fact that the art is made seems to contradict despair. It means at least that you are trying to communicate what you feel to somebody else and the very fact that you can communicate it takes away a little of the despair. Art has this contradiction built into it. All one has to do is look at its history.

A few years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York there was a show of Fragonard. He is an artist who has been thought sometimes to be much too pleasurable, much too playful, much too sweet to be serious, and certainly in the early nineteenth century that’s how he was dismissed. It was only the Goncourt brothers who started looking seriously at his paintings and buying them.

Today we see him differently. To me Fragonard is a wonderful artist. I think you can’t have art without play; Picasso always understood that. I think you can’t have much human activity of any kind without a sense of playfulness. Someone once criticized my work, saying it was too playful. I said, That’s hardly a criticism at all, that’s a compliment. I do see it as a compliment because I believe that without a sense of play there’s not much curiosity either; even a scientist has a sense of play. And that allows for surprises, the unexpected, discoveries. Anybody who gets good at it knows that. You can use it. I use it. People tend to forget that play is serious, but I know that of course it is. Some people have got the idea that if it’s boring it’s art and if it’s not boring it’s not art. Well, I’ve always thought it was the other way round. If it’s boring, more than likely it’s not art, if it’s exciting, thrilling, more than likely it is. I don’t know of any good art that’s boring, in music, poetry or painting. Isn’t that why Shakespeare is so exciting?

You can find more information on David Hockney on the Artsy website.