This isn't about being nude. It's about being known.
Dare To Bare Project
The Dare to Bare Project is an ongoing series of original paintings, and every one of them starts the same way: with a real woman telling the truth about her life.
Each cohort I choose a small group of women to become muses for new work. Not because of how they look. Because of what they carry. Your story is the reference. Your essence is what I paint toward. And by the time the canvas is finished, you'll see yourself the way I saw you from the very first word you wrote.
WHO IT'S FOR
You'll know if this is you.
You're the one everyone else comes to. The one holding it together for the people you love, doing more for them than you've done for yourself in longer than you'd like to admit. Somewhere in there is a version of you that hasn't fully shown up yet. Quieter. Softer. Still figuring out if she's allowed to take up space.
You don't have to be ready. You just have to be willing to tell the truth.
“Painting myself became a practice of self-love. At 50 I gave up fighting with my body & started embracing a new version of myself."- Chanelle René
THE EXPERIENCE
Here's what happens when you become a muse.
You're not handed a finished painting and sent on your way. You're part of it, start to finish.
You'll be seen and documented throughout the painting process, not just at the end of it. When the work is done, you get a private reveal before anyone else lays eyes on it, along with your own 8x10 fine art print to keep. If you want it, you'll be credited by name, and your story becomes part of the collection's narrative. And before the collection goes public, you get to see the whole thing first.
This is your process as much as it is mine.
Spots Are Limited
THE COLLECTION
Every cohort becomes a body of work.
Once a series is complete, the paintings live on as originals available for sale, and as fine art prints for the women who want to bring a piece of the collection home even if they weren't in it. Nothing gets rushed to market. It gets released the way it was made: with care.
COHORT STRUCTURE
Small on purpose.
I choose 3 to 5 women per cohort, 1 to 2 times a year. Submissions are free, always. Spots are limited because attention doesn't scale, and every muse deserves mine, fully.
If it's not your season this round, it doesn't mean your story didn't land. It means the timing wasn't right yet. Every woman who submits and isn't selected stays in the running for future cohorts.
How It Works
The full picture, no surprises.
Beauty isn't saved for someday.
You don't need to have it figured out. You don't need to be your most photogenic, most articulate, most put-together self. You need to be willing to tell the truth about where you are, and let someone else do the seeing for once.
Chanelle René
Painter • sculptor • muse
At 50 I thought a changing body meant disappearing and felt safe painting nameless faces.
In my 40s I battled to embrace my changing body and feared saying goodbye to my youth. I would cringe at my self portrait paintings and didn’t believe I could be the muse of my own work.
While working on a figure drawing series, I realized the parts of my body I wanted to hide (like my thick thighs, soft belly, rolling waist) spoke to the vulnerability, softness and femininity I wanted to express in my art.
The truth in my art depended on me no longer hiding.
So I bared it all, posing in my art studio. With every click of the camera, the discomfort and awkwardness slowly faded. When I looked through my camera roll I was amazed at what I saw.
For the first time I saw the comfort, confidence and presence of being in my middle aged body. The figure drawings where I finally became the muse are so much more than being nude. It was the moment of embracing the beauty of now and a 50 year old changing body no longer meant disappearing.
Meeting the beauty of my body where it is has evolved from drawings into a painting ritual. And with each new piece I paint, my self acceptance, confidence and being unapologetic grows.
The Dare To Bare Project is an experience I created for real women to bare their stories painted on canvas. Join the waitlist to get notified and share your story.