The Story of Sequencing

This approach to painting was developed by RGS co-founder Ric Campman, with support from other faculty members at the school. Ric had Multiple Myeloma cancer. After a stem cell transplant, he felt he was gifted with an insight that enabled him to develop this approach to painting. His years of art making, teaching, and spiritual practice inform this simple yet profound way of accessing creativity.

Sequencing is a way for both beginners and more experienced art makers to enter the process of painting at a deep and direct level.  The process allows hands and eyes to move in harmony, unhindered by tools and preoccupation with technique. Using wax, a palette of paints, and small rectangles of paper, art makers can circumvent the common feelings of self-doubt, technical inadequacy, or uncertainty through immersion into the intuitive and hands-on process of creating a seascape. Preparing the paper, selecting colors, and using fingers instead of a brush, the artist can subdue the habitual supremacy of intellect and judgment, creating a work of art that emphasizes metaphor, color, light, the horizon, and the physical encounter with the paint. It offers art makers the opportunity to suspend many of their prejudices and to reformulate and deepen their connection with the joyful process of creating art.

In the years since Ric's death in 2006, teachers at the school have continued to use and develop Sequencing. Besides being used in the studio classes, frequent workshops are held. 

Recently, Lydia Thomson has started Sequencing Teacher Training sessions to enable teachers in other locales to begin to learn how to share the process. 

Ric wrote:   So, we return to the senses (vision), coupled with action (our hands moving), to paint; our hands and eyes are literally interacting with each other.