What is Spontaneous Painting?

The I.am.I Spontaneous Painting Process is a self-discovery process and unique approach in the creative arts that develops the participant's Authentic Self and creative personality. It increases the intellectual, creative and spiritual development of the Whole Human Being. Spontaneous Painting is a self-discovery process and unique approach in the creative arts that develops the participant's Authentic Self and creative personality. This process benefits both artists as well as people with no prior artistic experience who are curious to connect to their artist within. Inside of everyone exists an unknown essential Self yearning to create, if given the opportunity. This kind of creative Self-expression is a key for mental health preservation.

Participants learn how to spontaneously create powerful paintings and express onto a blank canvas their unconscious symbolic images. Through this process people gain greater insight into their inner goals, life purpose, and rich inner world. When consciousness is not dominated by rational thinking, we can develop our multiple intelligences (I.am.I) and potentials through creative expression, such as our emotional intelligence, personal essential aptitudes, intuition, precognition, creative personality, and transcendent states.

Participants are stimulated to paint their "limiting beliefs", express powerful emotions and have breakthroughs that may stimulate the development of new thought patterns. The objective is to paint with no concern for beauty or judgments. 

“Spontaneous Painting is an excellent channel to reprogram our subconscious limiting beliefs, because it accesses deeper levels of the mind where symbols reside.”

What is the symbol?​

When we face a blank canvas and spontaneously express with no preconceived ideas, and are open to receive whatever colors or forms spontaneously arise, we open a channel for our unconscious contents to communicate in a symbolic language. The symbol is a psychic energy that exists in a dormant state in the unconscious, and the act of painting motivated by deep emotion catalyzes (awakens) the contents of the symbol. All symbols are images but not all images are symbols. A symbol is an image with a deeper, more complex meaning. Through the painting of symbolic images we can contact an alternate form of wisdom. The act of Spontaneous Painting is a curative process, which catalyzes the symbols of one's Authentic Self (true identity), resulting in qualitative changes in our relationship to ourselves, and the way we relate toward one another.

The symbol is a universal resource which nature has bestowed upon us to evolve human consciousness. The symbol embodies energy of pure potentiality that lives in a dormant state in our Unconscious. The process of spontaneous painting liberates this powerful life force within. Each person's unique potential, Authentic and Higher Self, life direction and Innate Authentic Multiple Intelligences flow forth through the brushstroke onto the paper. No artistic training is necessary. Once our symbols are expressed, a transformative process is activated that initiates behavioral change. Our symbols begin to direct us from within.

​Research confirms that symbolic images are multi-faceted, revealing new aspects of one's Self, and may continue to direct each painter's life for months and years after they appear. Symbols have a life and a direction of their own, and the rational mind must learn to sit back and allow another cognition to function, the language of symbolic images.

“That which we were born to become exists as a seed inside of us, and the challenge is to liberate this potential.”

Did you know you were born with Innate Authentic Multiple Intelligences (I.am.I™)?
They are: Emotional, Creative, Intuitive, Imaginative, Spiritual, Symbolic, Visual and Kinesthetic ways of knowing.​

In a world culture that increasingly prioritizes intellectual knowledge for the job market, society needs to rethink priorities and seek a balance that also values and includes educating the Innate Authentic Multiple Intelligences, I.am.I™ - our emotional, creative, spiritual, symbolic, intuitive, imaginative, visual and kinesthetic original ways of knowing. The acronym I.am.I™ Method of Spontaneous Painting was chosen to honor these intelligences.

What is Whole Brain Learning?

Whole Brain Learning (WBL) bridges the conscious and unconscious mind, develops unilaterally the right and left brain processes in a balanced way, educating the whole human being, body, mind, and spirit. The mission of our organization is to include a Whole Brain Learning approach in education to expand consciousness by offering such programs as Spontaneous Painting. 

The Whole Brain facilitator is trained first and foremost to listen empathically. She also creates and sustains an emotionally safe environment where individuals learn compassionate tools for relating to oneself and another, connecting beyond cultural stereotypes and prejudices, without blame or criticism, and ultimately deepening human connection. The act of Spontaneous Painting is a curative process, which catalyzes the symbols of one's Authentic Self (true identity), resulting in qualitative changes in our relationship to ourselves, and the way we relate toward one another.

The Whole Brain facilitator understands and supports the creative process and characteristics of the creative personality. In order to develop the creative personality in others, the facilitator needs to develop these qualities within and personally experience the transformative process of rebirthing their Authentic Self.  How might our lives be different today if we had been taught from kindergarten to adulthood by trained facilitators who valued not only our performance but also supported our creative potentials and human greatness. 

Instead of coping with painful emotions through addictions to food, drugs, alcohol, or suppressing them which leads to anxiety, depression, rage and even violence – approaches to Whole Brain Learning like The Spontaneous Painting Process offer individuals healthy, creative outlets to express all their emotions.

Objectives of the Spontaneous Painting Process and Whole Brain Learning (WBL)

To understand the dynamics of the creative process and the blocks that inhibit the process of the creator. To discuss the conditions which are favorable for developing a creative environment in which risk-taking can occur. To be familiar with the characteristics of the creative personality. To understand the dynamics of the creative personality and develop teaching methodologies to encourage these characteristics in participants.

  1. To stimulate creative intelligence through engaging in various activities such as creative writing, visualizations, artistic forms of expression in various mediums, Biodanza movement, and other forms of corporeal expression, Mindfulness Meditation, and other vias of stimulating creative thought.

  2. To become familiar with various states of consciousness, natural intelligences and language systems besides those of rational and intellectual perception, for example: kinesthetic, emotional, intrapersonal, interpersonal, musical, linguistic, logical, spatial (space-time), spiritual, symbolic learning and various symbolic language systems which express in artistic creations, dreams, myths and fairytales.

  3. To develop emotional and spiritual education and explore new teaching methodologies in this field.

  4. To promote opportunities for participants to transmit to the canvas the emotions they experience at an unconscious level, awakening Self-awareness.

  5. To encourage the participants in their search for understanding another potential of art. Study the intimate relationship between creativity and archetypal image, and how Spontaneous Painting is a way of expressing an immanent and transcendent reality, through the exploration of essential unconscious contents that aid in strengthening one's authentic Self identity.

  6. To introduce the learning of communication skills for working with groups, facilitating comprehension of the systematic processes occurring in groups and how to create harmony and facilitate methods of meaningful interaction and open discussion.

  7. To encourage participants to develop an internal source of inspiration and develop the self-confidence to believe in their intuitive, creative voice (or muse).

The WBL facilitator supports the creative process and the Characteristics of the Creative Personality.

  1. The ability to take risks / courage

  2. Nonconformity, independent thinker

  3. Receptive to different ideas and new experiences /Likes to do things in different ways

  4. Receptive to thoughts society considers abnormal or eccentric/Innovative, ingenuity

  5. Ability to surpass boundaries of traditional thought, to extend and break frontiers

  6. Perceptive to the needs of the future

  7. Variety of interests

  8. Self-motivated

  9. Persistent

  10. Curious

  11. Impulsive, spontaneous

  12. Childlike

  13. Often optimistic/ idealistic rather than practical

  14. Extremely sensitive

  15. Ability to access deeper regions of the unconscious

  16. Ability to feel intensely

  17. Passionately involved in their project

  18. Tries to use time productively - values every moment

  19. A sense of creative destiny/ believe you have to do something/ a sense of mission

  20. Persistent/indestructible quality

  21. Has difficulty submitting to rigid rules, schedules

  22. Ability to perceive interconnections between apparently separate subjects.

  23. Ability to approach a problem from a variety of viewpoints/ Global thinking

  24. Capacity to generate a great number of ideas on a given problem or situation

  25. Ability to go to the essence of something, seeing behind all the intellectual abstractions

  26. Seeks internal rather than external approval

  27. Ability to think symbolically (abstractly) and express your inner self

  28. Ability to think metaphorically

  29. Uses humor as a way of expressing ideas

  30. Does not accept sex-stereotyped behavior

  31. Appreciates solitude

  32. This list of characteristics was incorporated from the work of D.W.Mackinnon, 1978 and A.Maslow, 1968

Creative self-expression is a natural human gift we ALL can develop if given the opportunity. Whole Brain Learning programs, such as Spontaneous Painting, provide people - from the advantaged to the homeless, and populations with or without special needs - with effective tools to develop their innate authentic Self. When large numbers of people actualize their authentic Self, they can align with their unique potentials, life direction, and develop their I.am.I™ 

Susan Bello’s
Spontaneous Painting Series

* It is necessary to view the overall evolution of the Authentic Self as a developing process expressed throughout a series of paintings. The following paintings are from Susan Bello's spontaneous painting series and they document the developmental process of her Authentic and Higher Self.

**Please click on each image to expand view.

Entering the Portal - 1

Entering the Portal - 2

Destroying Old Paradigms  - 3

The Emergence of the
Inner Warrior - 4

Mother Earth Series – Rebirthing Feminine Ways of Knowing and a New Consciousness - Painting 5 & 6

Adult Students
Spontaneous Painting Series

It is necessary to view the overall evolution of the Authentic Self as a developing process expressed throughout a series of paintings.  The two painting series below are each done by an art educator.

Student 1 - Revealing The Light
This student painted only in black for 6 years after her son died of cancer. She began painting spontaneously, and progressively in her process she expressed lighter colors. Expressing these colors and symbolic images transformed her grief and, her ability to feel new emotions and gratitude for being alive. Many times these paintings, first express onto the canvas in seed form. Unleashing these hidden emotions influences what will actualize in their personal lives over time.

Student 2 - Self-Empowerment
In this student's paintings we can see how the fearful emotions that dominated her behavior gradually transformed. Her spontaneous paintings motivated her to confront the world with courage, manifesting her authentic Self. She transformed into a woman who walks in the world connected to her light and life force.

Children’s Paintings

It is necessary to view the overall evolution of the Authentic Self as a developing process expressed throughout a series of paintings.  

William Yen (4th Grade)

"I like meditation because it calms you down and clears your mind. If you look at a painting closely you can see how you were feeling. I realized that I can show my feelings on paper. I like spontaneous painting because it makes me feel relaxed and calm."

Marion Chong (6th Grade)

"I am hidden, blue, treasured, broken, in within a paradise, with my emotions, lonely."

Serat Kazi (6th Grade)

"Spontaneous Painting helps me to relax. I don't have to think about what we're painting. It's just a free painting time. When I paint I feel like I can be anywhere. I learn my true emotions. My true emotions are really inside of me. Spontaneous painting helps you know more of someone. It helped me to see my friend's feelings."

April Chen (5th Grade)

"There are always feelings that I hide from other people, but when it is art I can find a million feelings in the painting. The meditation is also a part of the spontaneous painting. Meditation helps me focus and relax before a spontaneous painting."

"Spontaneous Painting is an excellent channel to reprogram our subconscious limiting beliefs, because it accesses deeper levels of the mind where the symbols reside.”

— Susan Mintz-Bello PhD ATR