Up: [[Expressive Art Ideas - A Long List]] Created: 2025-11-10 Updated: 2025-12-03 I discovered this interesting and new intuitive art process, the work of artist and art therapist Amy Simons, through her Substack publication. Amy developed her practice after having an Inanna descent dream in the midst of the COVID pandemic in 2020. She knew she needed to work with the dream and the [[Inanna]] myth. She wanted to do so over and over, not just illustrating it, but re-entering it. Amy describes it as *a kind of open-eyed dreaming. I wanted to travel like Hermes between worlds, gathering messages and medicine.* It was her mother who suggested working with the dark so Amy developed this process. She has supplies: a pile of paper, charcoal, eraser putty, fixative. She has the environment: a candle and a small altar of objects which she changes regularly. She has her process: 1. Blacken the entire paper with charcoal. 2. Breathe in then, with a gentle exhale, get rid of excess charcoal dust. I’ll do this with a soft brush or I’ll pick up the paper and tap it off into the garbage can. Blowing charcoal dust around my studio doesn’t appeal to me! 3. She softens her gaze and tunes into the marks, textures and tones on the page. 4. Images and shapes form slowly which she excavates with her eraser putty and a light touch. This often requires working in layers, *like an archaeological unearthing*. My first one is called Plunge in Fear. ![[SD - Plunge in Fear (DD).webp]] #### Studio Notes This was an interesting process that was less messy than I thought it would be. And I was surprised to find that images did indeed emerge. I had to use tiny twisted bits of eraser putty to get them and need to get better at working those eraser bits to get details.