Art as Rest
I have never considered myself an artist and rarely allow myself the time to do art because it’s not very “productive”.
Whenever I’ve picked up watercolors, I never know what to paint, so I end up painting a big rainbow or a simple landscapes featuring trees, mountains and the sun.
To me, the results look so trite and juvenile I don’t want to keep trying and I’ve relegated myself to artistic endeavors like hand lettering with brush tip markers to write inspirational phrases or Bible verses.
However, the other week I attended an Art and Faith event at my church. The speakers were so inspirational as they talked about God being a creator I was particularly enamored by one of the speakers, Li Ching Accurso who’s an art professor at Columbia College. She was so bold and authentic as she told us to stop listening to our inner critic and just do what we were made to do.
The same day as the church event, I heard some very bad news and was really shaken up. I couldn’t stop thinking about the news and when I came home, I pulled out my kids’ cheap watercolors and brushes, and my kids and I started to paint.
As I put the brush to the paper and slowly and deliberately moved it across the page, I could feel the texture of the paper underneath my hand as I saw the glorious wash of color hit the page. I cut out a picture of a dahlia from a magazine and tried to paint the dahlia, experimenting with brush pressure and different amounts of water on the page. To my amazement, I could create different gradations of color — in ways I thought looked decent — with cheap kid art supplies.
And what amazed me even more was this: when I was painting, I was not ruminating about the bad news I had heard.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been an over thinker, living in my head as a writer and reader.
But I discovered when I really focused on painting a flower petal or sketching a flower, all I could do was concentrate on the task at hand. I couldn’t ruminate and draw and paint at the same time.
I was so excited by the discovery that the next week I bought a bouquet of flowers at Trader Joe’s. I had taken one flower arranging class through a mom’s group at another church, so I simply grouped similar flowers and taped the stems together with painters tape that I substituted for floral tape.
Then I decided to paint the flower arrangement.
I sat on the floor and started sketching. It was a somewhat frustrating process because I discovered I had to sketch quite slowly in order to have enough control over my pencil to get the shapes I wanted. It was new for me to slow down so much - I am used to thinking quickly, writing quickly, and basically doing as much as I can quickly.
I was frustrated by the slowness.
But sketching also allowed me the luxury of slowing down, being fully present, and really observing, up close, the amazing intricacy of God’s creation. I noticed that the tiny purple flowers had unexpected pistons jutting up from their center, sunflowers actually have two colors (brown and black) in their core, and two seemingly identical daisies had different cores - one had yellow mixed in, and one had yellow and brown. I noticed the flowers had multiple layers of petals (so tedious to sketch but it’s amazing that they exist) and there were some woody looking green filler plants, that had pink tips - why would God do that if not just to have fun?!
After I laboriously sketched the bouquet, the fun part was filling it in with watercolor. It was like coloring. I loved trying to mix a never-before and never-again existing shade of paint, dabbing away my mistakes, and seeing immediate results. Filling out the page with paint was surprisingly satisfying.
I was so startled by the end product (who know I could paint something that looked “good”?) I texted pictures of the painting to artist friends who had given me advice on art supplies and organized the Art and Faith event, and also my family.
My own mother was so shocked by my painting she texted me:
“who did it”
I had always thought my 10-year-old daughter was the artist in the family but I’m realizing that I’m one too.
Have you discovered a new talent, passion or hobby in your adult life? Are there any activities that help you stay in the present / not ruminate?
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