Zen and the art of painting with water....

Thank you to Alexis McDonnell for this inspiration!
This is a direct reflection of one of your art provocations
 in your full-day Kindergarten class in Toronto.

Art should always be a provocation. An invitation.


Buddha Boards are amazing little low-tech art-making devices. You fill the well below the board with water. You dip your brush in and paint on the board. Your strokes appear in a beautiful, inky black. As the water evaporates, your first strokes get lighter and lighter until they disappear. And then you start again.

Or just keep going.

Or, in the true spirit of Zen, let go and walk away.

It's a brilliant lesson in art as process, in life as living. In letting go as the only path to beginning again. In the immutability of change.

Perfect in its simplicity.

A few of the inspiration photos I put out for the kids.

Credits for the inspiration paintings on display:

Pear - Roslyn Levin

Cat with tail hanging down - from Mini-Ninjas game, Home Entertainment Inc.

Panda - artist unknown 

Cat with cricket - Lynn Stanley

Round rabbit - Marc Bauer-Maison