blog #5

Introduction

Why did I start painting? How have my feelings towards painting evolved over the past couple of years? Why do I still paint? No joke, these are questions that I ask myself all the time. I feel like painting just happened, it’s like when you’re out on a walk and stumble across a quarter, it’s like that with painting too. I just, stumbled across it, it just happened to come into my life.

All About ME

Now, I’ve always been a creative person, and a person with an interesting imagination. When I found something boring I would dilute those noises and fly off into an imaginary world. I would often get called out by my teachers, that was the major draw back. The major event that I can recall from my childhood was when I mixed various paints into a cup. As a kindergartener I was filled with curiosity, and without much instruction, I decided to test some things out. I was utterly fascinated by the fact that after mixing all of those paints, the colour just changed. My teacher on the other hand, certainly did not feel the same way. She was enraged that I mixed those paints, now that I’m older I understand, but as a kid, I couldn’t do anything but cry. I wasn’t really allowed to paint at home because I was a very messy and clumsy so I painted in art class at school. I should correct myself; I still am clumsy, I remember spilling water on one of my best paintings, I guess clumsiness doesn’t disappear over time. Back to art class, my teacher was a very good teacher, he taught me a lot of things that I still recall. Many techniques and values. That was the only the beginning though, over time, I learned many new skills and practiced painting over and over again.

• 

• 

Starting Off

There was a time when I felt very confident about my art. In that period, I was most probably, definitely the cockiest child on earth. I would pretend to be modest when others complimented my artwork, “Oh no, I don’t think it’s that good, but thank you”. I was such a confident, outgoing and had a lot of ego. Thankfully, I’ve lost all of that ego and fake modesty and cockiness, those aren’t great traits. I realized that everyone has some form of meaning when they create a piece, whether the meaning is significant or not.

How I improved

Patience, time and effort. You cannot accomplish much without these things, I’ve only applied those three things into improving my skills in painting (I should probably do the same in other aspects as well). Something that I now understand is that, the outcome of something may not always be to your liking. You can’t really do much so you just have to accept that and work harder. That is what I did. My dad, who’s pretty good at art gave me many tips, and my mother, helped me figure out good colour combinations. I would place holds on many art books as a kid, eagerly thriving to learn new things such as techniques. I also loved looking at pictures from my favourite artists, they really inspired me.

How It Has Helped Me

I feel like many things have changed over the past couple of years, my painting style has changed and so has my mentality. Painting undeniably relieves all the stress and negativity that I have inside of me. I often show a lot of emotions when I paint, I might cry, I might ‘accidentally’ break my brush, or I might just silently think and work. I like most of my paintings to convey some sort of message, although, sometimes I don’t. Putting all of that aside, finding the motivation to actually sit down and paint is the most difficult part. For the past few months, I’ve been going outside and observing many things around me. This has helped me tremendously, to find inpiration AND motivation. Thank you Mother Nature.

Conclusion

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about a lot of things, I’ve put in a lot of time writing these blogs as well and odd enough, I feel super motivated! Writing about something is as helpful as going outside as well. I’ll be painting soon, this time I will have many ideas and a lot of expressiveness to express in my art.