The Canvas Salvage Project - Stage 4 (Phase 3)

Canvas Salvage Project

Australian Art Creativity Studio ADHD Experiment

© Jody Arnold, August 2026

Stage 4 (Phase 3) - 26th August, 2026

Canvas Salvage Project - Stage 4 (Phase 3)

Canvas Salvage Project - Stage 4 (Phase 3) mysterious moon silhouette

Canvas Salvage Project - Stage 4 (Phase 3) mysterious moon silhouette

Facebook Entry:

Now there is a little magical anecdote with this layering today.

I was experimenting between a new brush and the sponge techniques today, and normally I would practice in my journal before trying it out on the canvas, but this canvas project is all about sponteity, 100% intuition, 100% instinct and a whole lot of bracing oneself on the whimsical flying by the seat of my pants and hoping for the best, kind of experience.

For those who know me, I am a deeply spiritual non religious person, mostly because of my millennia old celt family gene pool, so as a deep empath and intuitively driven and aware person (due to my spatial awareness) a 'mistake' I had made during the layering process emerged, which genuinely took me by surprise.

In this lifetime, my artist muses are Waterhouse, Morris and Van Gogh. So I guess you can kind of see why my natural   stylisation is a slight reflection of their influences - not by deliberance, definitely purely accidental and incidental - but see in this close up of this layering stage that amidst the frantic left to right (and back again!) swipes with the sponge created these hazy streaks and the span brush created these stippling effects, that something incredible emerged through it that is a perfect circle shape.

Now I did not mark that in or even attempt to put any paint placement in that area to make it like that. It appeared by itself, and has me genuinely baffled, because I had not intended to have a moon in the upper stratosphere horizon, yet here we are, looking at a silhouette or one where later the iridescent paint will highlight that silhouette at a later date.

In fact I had been frantically swiping in that area with the sponge quite heavily and diligently and yet here it was like someone had meddled in my process but I had not noticed until after the fact.

So I will let you decide what you think may of happened, but for me, its going into one of those 'X-files' kind of situations. Its been 30 minutes now and I still cant get my head around what has happened to cause this. But then, this is why I love   doing freestyle art, it opens the doors to magic and to me, this is the first genuine magic composite element to emerge for the painting.

The fact that I am now painting again has got my spirit guides a buzz. The three of them standing together in the middle of my studio room babbling together looking over my shoulder this morning.

Website Blog:

The Facebook entry summed it all at this point I think.

Personal Reflection:

As more time progresses, I start to see magic alchemise in creativity. Most times I see it in the expression of others in the daily life experience, not always in my own. Yet it always appears around those who are healing or on an actualisation journey.

The last time I had a artistic guide tangibly come through was just over two years ago in the last place I was living in. It was Vincent going, ‘Student! Why are you not doing more painting! The last time I taught you, we were exploring bringing three dimensional aspect to a two dimensional abstract painting. That was what I was last working on, before… you know…’

He was referencing me being a real life student of his during his time of life, though in this contemporary life, now that I am more open to receiving intuitive energies I think he must've been frustrated, or I shut down the open comms because of the precarious health situation I was facing as a result of the most recent trauma I had recently endured at the time (being more of a priority for the universe to sort out).

The past two years since living in Penola, I have been trying to force myself to use the original cottage rooms to do my creativity but I always seemed stifled, oppressed and to a degree even repelled from entering the building. I thought it was me, stuck in my negative gearing mojo. It was the usual narrative for automatic blame shifting. Heck, even at once stage I blamed the resident ghost. (Yes, that’s a whole other story to be told one day)

But I think this very tangible and mysterious outcome today, which was totally not planned for, expected or anticipated, kind of reassuringly validates that creativity can span kingdoms, realms and dimensions. How and why, I’m not to bothered to know about, just that it happens and creativity can travel the ethers, is a universal language with a universal energy.

And it’s the experiences like this which add depth and meaning to a life encounter we don’t need to always analyse or formulate in order to understand for control or manipulation, just accept as being ‘as is’ (which is the essence of faith in the divine).

I think having the studio room changed to a different space on the property has made all the difference, it feels like I am meant to be in this room of this particular building and the positive energy wells in the centre of the room which offers great peace, constance, equilibrium and safety to explore my creativity for now until the time comes later for me to open a new public building for workshops and art therapy sessions.

Definitely feeling the love that comes from enigmatic manifestations during the creative process today.