Welcome to 'Dreaming Awake' with Kevin Campeau!
This is a course that honors imaginative explorations in painting while celebrating Inner Journeying!
As visual artists we are constantly engaging with our imagination and seeking inspiration from it. It is always with us, often used and often not considered very much.
- Could we be bolder in identifying ways of considering it, bridging the gap toward the imagination and all that it holds with more clarity of purpose?
- Could we map that path, the way in?
- Could we study our intent along the way and refine it?
- Could we become better artists, storytellers and creatives by claiming our own inner territory and all that doing this entails?
Inner Journeying is a way to the wellspring which aids in administering all imaginal inspiration to us. Rather than relying on things to just 'happen' to inspire you, you can utilize your inner senses and spatial memory as a vehicle and a tool to move toward it consciously and grasp it with intent.
Inner Journeying
Inner Journeying describes a practice which I've been involved with for the past 20+ years and which I've been teaching to others for the past 10 years. It is a process of creative self-reflection and inner exploration combined with meditative elements, inner dialogue and documentation through writing – though this description fails to really explain what it feels like or how it plays out over time. It is a kind of 'dreaming awake', of moving intentionally through imaginal spaces and dialoguing directly with forms of guidance which appear in them. From my personal experience it is a highly sensual, complex, emotionally engaging and transformative process which leads to multitudes of personal epiphanies.
One thing to be aware of from the beginning is that Inner Journeying, once learned, is something akin to a skeleton key which fits into the keyholes of endless multi-dimensional gateways – all held within yourself and your imagination. It can open you to new and unexpected states of awareness. However it tends to naturally reign itself in to those things you are ready for, which you are willing to discover.
If you are a dreamer, you can investigate your dream content using Inner Journeying. For example, during an Inner Journey you can use your memory to recall imagery and feelings from a night dream and re-enter into it while awake - clarifying and expanding upon its narrative from a conscious reflective perspective. You can journey into your memories and sense impressions, into the realms of anything you can fantasize about, into specific emotions, into abstract and not so abstract concepts, into cosmic mysteries and you can learn to dialogue with all the forms of inner guidance that appear during those explorations.
The depth of your imagination is your only limit. And one of the most amazing things about Inner Journeying, is that as you develop it, it will take you ever deeper and help you expand the limits of your imagination the more adept you become at it.
I want to help you realize that wellspring in yourself as much as possible during this course so the first half of each day will be set aside specifically for journeying. I will introduce you to my Trifold Approach to Inner Journeying, a transmission of the essentials you'll need to continue piercing the veil with the practice on your own. I'll also help you discover your own Alchemical Memory Palace within the realms of your imagination, giving you insight into how to further sensually train spatial memory and intuitively consolidate ideas. At the end you will journey into your own painting, exploring its subtle development and the spaces and imagery that unfold within it.
The second half of each day will be for exploring bringing forth some of the inspiration you'll receive from journeying into painting. I will be sharing my most used and most loved techniques for indirect painting in acrylics. I'll teach you how to create a textural imprimatura or ground for your painting and how to create your own neutral tint. You'll learn how to build up a monochromatic underpainting in values of light and shadow, how to create glazes of colour and how to fine tune as you go. I'll be sharing my Vitreous Technique with you as well – the method I use to create glasslike and gemlike forms in paint.
I am looking forward to being a guide along your imaginative and creative path – see you soon!
SCHEDULE
Saturday, November 5, Sunday, November 6, Saturday, November 12, Saturday, November 19, 2022
6 - 10pm Central European
12 - 4pm Eastern
9am - 1pm Pacific
RECOMMENDED MATERIALS
All of the below listed items are essential for this course. Please make sure to have everything by day one!
FOR INNER JOURNEYING:
- A blank notebook to record all of your Inner Journeys in writing
- A pen or pencil
FOR TRANSFERRING DRAWINGS OR REFERENCES:
- Tracing paper
- Chalk Transfer Paper (I use Saral Brand)
- A hard pencil or a pen
FOR PAINTING:
- An easel or alternatively you can paint flat at a table if it suits you more
- Acrylic palette w/ lid, disposable palette paper or a ceramic plate that you can wash the paint off of afterwards
- Paper towels or clean rags to wipe your excess paint on while painting and to dry your brushes after cleaning them with dish soap & water. To clean your brushes effectively, first wipe off all excess paint from the brush onto a rag or piece of paper towel. Dab the inside of your palm with soap and vigorously rub the brush into it right down to the bottom of the brush hairs to remove paint, then rinse and repeat until the water runs clear. You can also use a sponge with a soft back to do this if you don't want to use your hand. You may notice acrylic paint dries quickly so if you are going to be setting a brush aside for a while and might forget, consider washing it so it doesn't get ruined. Take care of your brushes!
- A cup for your paint water and access to a sink
- A spray bottle with water in it (can have multiple kinds with different sprays if you wish, you can reuse any old spray bottle)
- A selection of acrylic colours (see preferred colours below) of any good quality brand – I use OLD HOLLAND and GOLDEN acrylic brands.
****You will definitely need GOLDEN Fluid Acrylics - Titanium White and GOLDEN Fluid Acrylics - Titanium Buff for this course.**** If you can only get one, get the Titanium White. These come in small or medium sized bottles and you'll need to have this to build up your lights in layers most effectively! Alternatively, though not recommended, just make sure you have titanium white paint from a tube and you can use medium and water to thin it out.
- Acrylic matte medium and acrylic semi-gloss medium. I do use very specific mediums, these being LIQUITEX Matte Medium (which has a soft matte finish) for the imprimatura and SCHMINKE Acrylic Special Painting Gel (which has a semi-gloss finish) for the rest of the painting. The matte medium is runny enough to cover a lot of surface area quickly while the gel is a bit thicker and creamier for local glazing. If you can get these exact mediums then that is great – especially with the SCHMINKE medium you are in for a treat as it extends the drying time and workability of the paint in such a way that you can achieve looks that resemble oil painting. If you can't find either of these where you are located in the world, then get what you can or use what you already know and trust.
As long as you have some acrylic medium (preferably semi-gloss then) that doesn't dry instantly because I don't want you just painting with water.
- Two gessoboards or gessoed stretched canvases (one to practice on, one to use for your painting). These can ultimately be in the size of your choice however I recommend something medium sized for your painting and not too large or small. 24x30 cm or 12x16 inches is ideal but anything around that size will work great. Concerning texture, these should be relatively smooth, especially if it's a gessoboard. A bit of tooth is okay on a canvas, but avoid canvases with heavy texture showing through.
In terms of quality of materials to use – avoid student quality paints, brushes and other materials. Buy professional quality items if you don't have them already and consider it an investment in yourself. You will notice the difference!
Brushes that will come in handy for this workshop:
- Fine liner brush (1 cm long – synthetic is fine)
- Soft ‘mop’ blending brush, can be a fluffy watercolour brush (small and medium) Filbert (cat tongue) brushes – an assortment of sizes (with at least one larger one) Flat brushes (small and medium)
- Small detail brushes with a fine tip of various sizes
In general just make sure you have a broad range of sizes and types of brushes, for painting on larger areas, smaller areas and detailing. Be aware you will be laying paint down mostly in subtle layers after the ground is painted, so bristly brushes are not really recommended. They should be nice and smooth. Synthetic brushes specificially meant for acrylics are best.
My Preferred Old Holland Acrylic Paint Colours:
Reds
- Alizarin Crimson
- Transparent Red Oxide
- Blood Red
- Yellow
- Transparent Oxide Yellow
- Naples Yellow
- Yellow Ochre
- Cadmium Yellow
- Indian Yellow
- Brown
- Raw Umber
- Burnt Umber
- Burnt Sienna
- Van Dyck Brown
Greens
- Chromium Oxide Green
- Sap Green
- Green Umber
- Green Earth
- Pthalo Green
Blues
- Ultramarine Blue
- Pthalo Blue
- Prussian Blue
- Manganese Blue
- Indigo
- Cerulean Blue
- King's Blue
- Payne's Grey
- Violet
- Dioxazine Violet
- Ultramarine Violet
- Old-Holland Violet-Grey
Whites
- Titanium White
- Titanium Buff
Black & Other
- Neutral Tint
- Ivory Black
- Mars Black
* OLD HOLLAND brand paints offers a diverse array of high quality paint colours, and these are the ones I prefer to use. I came to them by way of first using their oil paints and trusting the quality. If you are wishing to invest in a set of acrylic paints I definitely recommend this brand for their high pigment load and range of colours and shades. Having a full set of colours and shades covering the spectrum is recommended. Some are more opaque and some are more transparent. I personally prefer using transparent colours as they work very well when layering but the more opaque colours come in handy too and can be made to be more transparent using medium so you shouldn't worry too much if you don't know which are more transparent or which are more opaque. The cadmiums as well as titanium white from the tube tend to be some of the most opaque however, just so you are aware. This brand is more commonly available in Europe.
GOLDEN is also a great brand for acrylics and is more known and widely available. It is slightly less expensive per tube than OLD HOLLAND. I use GOLDEN Fluid Acrylics - Titanium White and GOLDEN Fluid Acrylics - Titanium Buff to build up subtle layers of warm and cool whites in an acrylic underpainting – as I mentioned above, these are essentials to have for this course.
Some Compassionate Counsel from Kevin
Inner Journeying can bring up a lot of imagery and sense impressions, as well as the potential for feeling emotions connected to them. While you are journeying you may freely associate ideas and memories and remember or 'unlock' old memories which may have strong or intense emotions tied to them. It is ok to cry if you need to cry, to laugh if you need to laugh, to feel whatever comes through. From my experience, this is an important aspect of Inner Journeying – getting in touch with your emotions is just a part of the process. (You will be muted during the virtual session, until the end if you wish to speak, so have no worries about disturbing any silence.)
Please be aware - If you have been through a traumatic event in your life and have repressed or blocked emotions around that trauma, following this Inner Journey could spark you to seeing images based around that trauma in your imagination and feeling some of those emotions.
For some, the potential for this kind of thing to occur is acceptable and may even be what they expect or wish for as the outcome – the feeling of emotional breakthrough. For others, this potential is completely unacceptable and is not what they are wishing for at all as it can feel re-traumatizing to them. If the latter is the case for you, I would advise you not to attend this session.
What I am offering during this session are teachings based on my own personal experience of 20 years of practicing Inner Journeying. I am not a licensed therapist and I do not purport to be. If you are seeking a licensed therapy session please be advised I cannot offer this to you.
INSTRUCTOR
Kevin Campeau
About the Artist
Born in Alberta, Canada, Kevin Campeau spent his childhood living on an experimental farm in the northern prairies.
“I was that kind of young kid who really preferred the worlds and stories springing up within my own imagination to interacting with others. I was running with the foxes and jumping with the deer, swimming with the frogs and the fishes. I was crawling with the ants and chirping with the grasshoppers. I was shapeshifting, dreaming into my own nature and into nature.
Looking back, I can see how I was rhythmically connecting to a kind of essential relationship with myself, the world and the universe, though I saw it as just play. I felt like this queer little thing whose feelers were searching everywhere, whose sensitivity was filling itself to the brim. I was curious beyond measure. The man-made world seemed too harsh and unbending, crushing even, while I could find the warmth and flow in the imaginal realms that I personally needed to survive, to thrive. I was involving myself with the undercurrent of things without really realizing it, finding my place in the outer world through that connection with the inner one. Not every kid goes there or knows to do that. Somehow I did, there was enough space for me to.”
He came to discover a passion for drawing and writing, inspired mostly by his love for reading and his states of play. He explored and nurtured these modalities for creative expression throughout his time growing up. After finishing school he moved to Edmonton, Alberta to attend art college. He stayed for one semester and, unsatisfied with what he found to be a stale curriculum and environment, decided to drop out. He moved to Alberta's Rocky Mountains, seeking adventure, new experiences and a new landscape. It was here that he was overtaken by a sudden illness which left him nearly completely paralyzed.
“I was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) in late 2002. I was 20 years old and had just begun to discover myself as a young and out gay man. The illness affects the peripheral nervous system, eating away at the nerve connections. I ended up having a quite severe case. I lost all movement from my neck down and was in an incredible amount of pain. I was kept on a ventilator to keep me breathing and so lost my voice. All communication with the nurses, doctors and with my family was through lip-reading and facial expression. My body withered.
Luckily, one can recover from GBS as the nerve connections grow back. I was in hospital for four months from onset – four months which felt like years. When I was discharged from rehab I was already walking with a cane. The tendons in my legs had shortened despite rigorous daily physiotherapy and I had lost most of the muscle mass throughout my body. I spent nearly two years rehabilitating myself physically to where I felt strong enough to lead a 'normal' life. After all was said and done, physically I was left with permanent nerve damage and pain in my feet and lower legs, a small cost to pay in my opinion for being able to move and speak again.”
After this illness he moved to Quebec in Eastern Canada. Catalyzed by his experience, it was there that he began to focus reflectively into his creative process while seeking methods for spiritual inner healing. He took up meditation, which led him deeper into the practices of Inner Journeying, drawing and writing. These practices began to interweave and function as a unit. As he would meditate into his inner landscapes, inspired sometimes by vivid dreams or simply by what was arising in the moment, he would encounter archetypal spiritual guides and dialogue with them, recording these dialogues in writing and drawing.
“I had been through quite a lot in a short amount of time. Watching my bodily autonomy slip away and being in a constant state of intense pain for months had opened many dissociative (or perhaps super-associated) pathways within me. I felt newborn in a way, but also shattered. I felt the need to begin to process what had occurred while re-establishing a healthy connection with my inner life.
A new space within me began to emerge, expanding slowly through meditation and contemplation as well as through drawing and writing. I breathed into it. Memories flooded in of moments in my life that had felt like miracles and I consciously chose these as luminous cornerstones of the new foundation of self that I was beginning to build. A practice naturally began evolving from all of these things merging together, something I came to call Inner Journeying – traveling through the imaginal realms, dialoguing with inner spiritual guides, honing the inner senses, refining intention and strengthening the will.”
He attended The Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar in Italy in the summer of 2012, following a calling to learn painting and expand his ability to share imagery based on his inner experiences. He also attended The Vienna Academy of Visionary Art from its inception, becoming the first graduate of its 3 year program in June of 2016.
“When I moved to Vienna and began painting regularly at the academy something extraordinary was added to the mixture of transformative practices I'd been brewing for nearly a decade at that point. Painting was a potent piece of the puzzle that I'd been holding myself back from adding until I was truly ready for it. I admired it so much. When it finally came into play, it was as if this brew solidified – it became for me something like the idea of the philosopher's stone in alchemy. Inner Journeying, meditation, painting, drawing, writing...practiced alongside one another they form into something like creative pillars holding up a channel to divine intercourse with the universe.”
Since 2012 Kevin has been teaching his Trifold Approach to Inner Journeying to others from around the world. In 2017 he began offering his experience to others as a teacher of acrylic painting, oil painting and drawing. He co-taught that summer during The Visions in the Mischtechnik Seminar in Torri Superiore, Italy and returned again to teach in 2019. He also taught for five weeks during the second half of the Fall trimester 2019 at the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art.
In early 2022 he joined the faculty of the Vitra Academy.
Kevin Campeau is currently based in Vienna, Austria.
