Dimensions - An Intuitive Grimoire Painting

Dimensions was one of the first intuitive paintings to emerge in an early grimoire. Although that original book no longer exists in its first form, the painting found a new home in a larger, more eclectic grimoire that is still growing today. Like many things in my creative life, it simply continued its journey.

When I painted Dimensions, I had no idea what was appearing on the paper. The image emerged intuitively, one brushstroke at a time. It was only afterwards that I began to wonder what I was looking at.

To me, it suggests an alien landscape, another world or perhaps even another dimension. Strange yet beautiful plants rise from the ground, while a mysterious golden sphere containing a glowing triangle hovers above the horizon. Is it a sun? A portal? A living geometric being? I honestly don't know, and perhaps that is the beauty of intuitive art. It invites questions rather than answers.

Dimensions, Intuitive Painting, Watercolors on Paper, 20cm x 20cm, Grimoire, Rika Dehombreux, 2024

A small bird flies through the scene. Birds often appear in my work as gentle messengers, travelling between worlds, dreams and possibilities. They remind me that reality may be far richer than we can fully understand.

One of the things that fascinates me most is how the unusual flowers and plants that emerge in my intuitive paintings sometimes resemble real species I discover months or even years later.

After completing this painting, it made me think about alien worlds, alternate realities, multiple dimensions and the possibility that time is not as linear as we often imagine. It also reminded me of the ideas shared by Bashar, channelled by Darryl Anka, whose reflections on these subjects have long fascinated me.

Whether these worlds exist beyond us or only within our imagination matters less to me than the sense of wonder they awaken. I simply enjoy asking the questions and seeing where they lead.

I hope Dimensions invites you to wonder about the mysteries that may exist just beyond the edge of what we know.

With Love and Light,

Rika 💖🛸💫🌺🦜🙏🦜🌺💫🛸💖

Artist Interview: Rika Dehombreux on Art, Creativity & Intuition

If you would like to get to know me a little better, I warmly invite you to watch this interview with my artist friend Jules Ostara from Thrive True.

We talk about art, creativity, intuition, inspiration, and the ideas that have guided my creative journey over the years. Although the interview was recorded a few years ago, it still reflects the heart of my work and the joy I find in exploring creativity with curiosity and wonder.

My artwork includes paintings, drawings, sculptures, mixed-media art, creative journals, and grimoires, alongside many other creative explorations inspired by nature, folklore, mythology, symbolism, and the magic of everyday life.

🎥 Watch the interview on YouTube: 

Inner View with Rika Dehombreux about Art & Intuition : Thrive True with Jules Ostara

Thank you for visiting Glowing Roots. I hope you enjoy the conversation, and perhaps it will encourage you to follow your own creative path with curiosity, joy, and a sense of wonder.

Fawn - An Intuitive Painting

Some paintings begin with a carefully planned idea. Others quietly find their own way into the world.

Fawn belongs to the second kind.

‘Fawn’, Watercolors on Paper, Image: 23 x 31 cm, framed: 36 × 44 × 2 cm, 

Intuitive Painting by Rika Dehombreux, 2015

Painted in watercolour on paper in 2015, this piece was created during my Unorthodox Watercolour Painting course with Jan Nesbitt at the London Art College. The assignment invited us to combine several reference photographs into a new composition. I chose three photographs by my husband Sam: a young fawn, an American landscape, and the grapevine growing in our Belgian garden.

‘Grapes’, Sint-Pieters-Kapelle, Belgium, 2015, Photography by Samuel T. Woodbury

As the painting developed, it gradually transformed into something more dreamlike than realistic. The little fawn found itself beneath a canopy of grapes, overlooking distant blue hills wrapped in mist. It became less a real place and more a peaceful landscape of the imagination.

Imagine a gentle giant, quietly stepping across mountains and rivers while reaching up to feast on enormous blue grapes — a whimsical vision of nature's abundance and the nectar of life.

‘Fawn’, Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA, 2008, Photography by Samuel T. Woodbury

For me, the fawn has always symbolised gentleness, innocence and new beginnings. It reminds us to move through life with curiosity, kindness and an open heart, even when the path ahead is still unknown.

Looking back after all these years, I realize this painting was already hinting at the whimsical, intuitive world that would eventually become Glowing Roots.

‘Landscape’, Bitterrott Mountains, Idaho, USA, 2014, Photography by Samuel T. Woodbury

The original painting is available for collectors, while Fine Art Prints are also available for those who would like to welcome this gentle little companion into their own home.

I hope Fawn brings a little wonder, peace and quiet magic into your day.

With Love and Light,

Rika 🪷💫🧡🙏🧡💫🪷

Chatting about Intuitive Art with Karimeen

Hi everybody,

Our guest today on 'Chatting about Intuitive Art' is my artist friend Karimeen from India. We met on Instagram while enjoying each other's work. Karimeen is creating wonderful imaginary drawings and paintings. Her work is beautiful, colorful and full of happiness. Let's pass the word to Karimeen!

Could you tell us a bit more about yourself and how you became an artist?

Karimeen

I am Meenakshi Iyer, a self-taught artist from India (Delhi), who chooses to call herself Karimeen. My art journey started on a chilly winter morning when my parents departed for work, leaving me with a pencil and a cursive writing book. Of course, the cursive writing book was as dry as a bone, so my four-year-old heart made me choose the pencil and the freshly-painted walls of our flat.

I drew and doodled my way through the unimaginative subjects that I was forced to study in school – much to the chagrin of my teachers. My art was not limited to books… it was there on my friends’ books, class board, class benches, scraps of paper, my classmates’ palms, their handkerchiefs, and erasers – I didn’t spare them either!

It is unfortunate that I could not convert my passion into a profession. Much later in life, as I reignited the lost spark, I found ideas blooming out of my dreams, from observing people, children, nature, creepy-crawlies, all kinds of animals – their expressions, their everyday life – and music. These ideas would not let me sleep, and the only way to tame them was through my art. 

(LAMOUR) The reader and the wildflowers, Poster Paints & Watercolor on Paper, A4, 2021-2022

How would you define yourself as a creator?

As a creator, I judge myself less on my talent and passion, and more on how good I am at being myself. I follow the rabbit-hole of my own obsessions and see that I am weirdly good at something very specific. It is all about unleashing my own individuality, finding a purpose, and becoming a better human being. As a creator, each day is new learning, a revelation, an adventure, a mystery, and I am totally fascinated!

Do you consider yourself a light-worker and how do you see that?

Being an energy-sensitive empath, it’s easy for me to feel overwhelmed in daily life and to struggle with anxiety. I am definitely in the process of being a lightworker, but I also know that I have to heal myself first, address my own demons, and settle my karmic debt. The process has already begun and there is no looking back.

(SCOOTY), The Yellow Scooty, Poster Paints & Watercolors on Paper, A4, 2021-2022

Is there a healing aspect to your work?

I can vouch for the fact that I healed via my art. Six years back, my drawers were full of antibiotics, and now they are full of colours, brushes, and sketchbooks. While the doctors failed to even diagnose my condition, art completely cured me of my maladies, so much that now I feel like a spring chicken! If this is not magic, then please tell me what is it. 

Some of the comments on my Instagram handle do tell me that my colours make them feel lively and take them back to their childhood. I sincerely hope that one day my works put a permanent smile on their faces and infinite love and compassion into their hearts. 

(SLEEP) ... And I shall rise, Poster Paints & Watercolors on Paper, A4, 2021-2022

What does intuition mean to you and does it play a part in your work? If it does, how does that work?

Oh, intuition means everything to me, considering that I am an INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving). I trust it at all times to save me from precarious situations. At the moment, it is mostly my memories, imagination, and dreams that fuel up my art. Intuition plays a role in the sense that I enjoy the whole process rather than the final outcome. It is not guided by the seven deadly sins. It is art for the sake of art. It is art for the soul.

(WANDERLUST) Wander | The fusion of my art & soul takes me to places where I long to be,

Poster Paints & Watercolors on Paper, A4, 2021-2022

Do you sell your work and if you do, where can we find out more about that? Is there anything else you would like us to know about?

I am not selling much but that does not stop me from doing what I do the best. In case you wish to get in touch, you can give me a shout-out on Instagram @Karimeen6, or mail me at meiyerdec@gmail.com. All the proceeds from my sale go to animal welfare organizations and NGOs working in India.

Thank you so much Karimeen for giving us this very interesting interview and for sharing your beautiful art with us. 

Please let us know if you have any questions.

With Love and Light,

Rika 💖🙏💖

Glowing Roots Grimoire — Creative Research and Experimentation

 

Introduction

My grimoires are not created as finished art objects from the outset. They are working books that grow through research, experimentation, and use, and are completed over time.

They are not intended as spiritual manuals for rituals or spells per se. I use the word ‘grimoire’ in a personal, interspiritual way — as a poetic container for creative practice and research — while honoring that the term carries different meanings in other contexts and traditions.

Originally intended as: a sketchbook for life drawing and observation
Working title: Sketchbook 2001
Within the grimoire ecosystem: intuitive transformation, visual reflection, and existential writing layered over long-term observation
Artist: Rika Dehombreux
Year: 2001 - ongoing : The book is still in progress but as a grimoire now

From categorization to coherence

For many years, I struggled with categorizing my creative work. I kept separate sketchbooks, art journals, glue books, research notebooks, color studies, and technique experiments. Each book had a purpose, a rule, a label. In theory, this structure was meant to help me focus.

In practice, it did the opposite.

I would move from one interest to another — from mythology to color, from drawing to collage, from observation to imagination — and each shift seemed to require a new book. The result was a growing collection of half-filled notebooks and a persistent sense of fragmentation. I was always beginning, rarely completing, and constantly questioning where something truly belonged.

Over time, I realized that the problem was not a lack of discipline, but a mismatch between rigid systems and how my mind naturally works.

Originally intended as: an extended binder to hold experimental works too large for a regular format
Working title: Large Works Binder
Within the grimoire ecosystem: associative collage, dimensional experimentation, and fairy-tale symbolism exploring the power of storytelling
Artist: Rika Dehombreux
Year: 2011 - 2021 (completed): Glowing Roots Grimoire (2011–2021), Experimental Collage, Art and Soul, by Rika Dehombreux

The freedom to experiment and research

My creative process is exploratory by nature. I research, experiment, follow questions, abandon them for a while, and return later with new insight. I jump between subjects, techniques, images, and ideas. This is not chaos — it is how curiosity unfolds for me.

Once I stopped trying to force my work into fixed categories, a different structure emerged. Instead of separating everything, I began gathering it.

Drawing, collage, writing, symbolism, color tests, notes, references, observations, and failed experiments all started to coexist within a single book. That book became what I now call a grimoire.

In this sense, the grimoire is not about mastery or control. It is a space where experimentation is allowed, where research can remain visible, and where unfinished thoughts are not a problem but a record of thinking-in-motion.

Originally intended as: a handmade art journal for intuitive painting
Working title: The Big Purple Book
Within the grimoire ecosystem: intuitive painting, poetic repetition, and visual mantra allowing meaning to return and deepen over time
Artist: Rika Dehombreux
Year: 2014 – ongoing: The book is still in progress but as a grimoire now

The mad professor and the eternal student

I sometimes think of my grimoire practice as that of a gentle mad professor — someone who cannot stay with one subject long enough to exhaust it, because the world keeps offering new questions.

I am also, very deliberately, an eternal student.

The grimoire allows me to move freely between disciplines and interests without needing to dedicate one book to one theme. A single grimoire may contain mythological notes beside a color experiment, a careful observation next to a playful collage, a serious question followed by a moment of wonder.

Nothing needs to be resolved immediately. The grimoire holds contradictions, detours, and returns.

Originally intended as: a sketchbook for realistic drawing practice and study
Working title: Realistic Drawing Practice Sketchbook
Within the grimoire ecosystem: observational study dissolving into fantastical imagery, symbolic intuition, and reflection on non-linear time
Artist: Rika Dehombreux
Year: 2020 - dismantled: The book has been dismantled in 2025 and the works have been included in a grimoire in progress now

Completion without pressure

Although my grimoires begin as working books, they are meant to be completed.

Each one starts with a provisional or working title. Only after the book has reached its natural conclusion does it receive its permanent name and subtitle. This moment marks not perfection, but coherence — the point at which the grimoire reveals its own inner logic and personality.

I refer to these books collectively as my Glowing Roots Grimoires.

Each completed volume carries the name:

Glowing Roots Grimoire
by Rika Dehombreux
Subtitle (revealed after completion)

This naming system allows the work to unfold without premature definition, while still honoring completion, authorship, and intention.

Originally intended as: a glue book
Working title: Glue Book
Within the grimoire ecosystem: story seed, image-based storytelling, and poetic writing emerging from intuitive artwork
Artist: Rika Dehombreux
Year: 2019–2021 (completed): Glowing Roots Grimoire (2019–2021), Collage as Sentiment and Story as Seed, by Rika Dehombreux

A record of becoming

More than anything, my grimoires are records of becoming.

They document how ideas grow, how questions change, how research feeds imagination, and how making by hand leads to understanding that cannot always be planned or explained. They are neither purely private nor created for immediate display. They exist in the space between process and form.

By gathering my work into grimoires, I no longer need to choose between intuition and structure, or between research and play. The grimoire holds both — quietly, patiently, and over time.

Some of these magical books also appear in flip-throughs and process videos on my YouTube channel — Rika Dehombreux →