Yesterday I was creative
Yesterday I was inspired
Yesterday I was an artist.
It was wonderful, I was so excited, and I had all the equipment.
Huge selection of paint brushes – check P
Lots and lots of paint – check P
A paint pallet – check P
The largest canvas I could find – check P
And the enthusiasm and creativity to create the greatest painting on earth – check PPP
Now the thing you have to understand here, at this point is.... I have never, ever painted anything in my life. I am at the level three times below a novice but I didn’t care, I was so into this venture that nothing was going to deter me from creating this masterpiece. In fact, I can hear the critical acclaim from here, the utter amazement at my natural talent and unheard of brilliance from this brand new emerging artist. The world is my stage and I was taking my first bow right now before I had even picked up the paint brush and painted that first stroke. Oh the size of my head had just swelled to at least five times its usual size. I am a star, baby... I am amazing... stand back and gasp in awe over my incredible talent.
And so the journey begins.
As all the best artists do, I had chosen my subject. I had taken a brilliant photo of the moon recently, it was a full moon of course and had clouds all around it in just the right places. How wonderful was I, this was greatness in the making. Stand back and watch, peeps, you are about to witness the event of the year.
Hmm hang on, there is a problem... how does one start a painting???? Hmm night sky, full moon, clouds. How easy is that, how simple, how straight forward.... but, where do I start, I have no idea. Insert horror stricken face here, no make that horror stricken clueless face here!
Things were going so well (in my head) until I was poised, brush in hand, ready to start. Which brush do I use, which colour do I start with, why did I chose such a huge canvas. Breathe, I must breathe. I don’t understand. I am an artist, why don’t I know what to do, I am confused!
I process my thoughts, I am painting a full moon in the night sky, so I guess I need to make a circle for the moon and keep that white and then paint the background around the moon. The moon is light, the sky is dark, yep that makes sense to me... there, that wasn’t so hard. Phew, I am back on track.... now off in search of something to trace around for my moon.
I find something quickly and start the first stroke, well pencil mark... I did it, I started. That wasn’t too hard at all. Now that I have the space isolated for the moon, I can put paint to canvas and get back on the creative track.
Blue, yes I shall start with blue, dark blue. I think the way to cover such a huge area is by squeezing the pain from the bottle, right to the canvas, yup that is surely the way to do it, pfft I don’t need to put it into the pallet just to take it out again. ‘Weeeeeeeee gosh this is fun’, I say to myself as I squirt blue paint all over the canvas. ‘How impressive is that’, I say out loud with a huge grin on my face. This is easy, what was I worried about, fun, fun, fun.
I grab the fattest brush I have and start spreading the paint. Swoosh to the left, swoosh to the right. Long big sweeping strokes, oooooh I like this, this is so much fun. I am careful not to get blue paint on my moon space and I remember to do the edges of the canvas too, the painting must not end on the top, it has to be on the sides as well, I don’t know why, I just know it has to be.
There, blue paint everywhere. How impressive, what fun, that was truly great therapy for me. This painting thing is sooooooooooo easy, I have no idea why I was so terrified just moments before. Ok, so now what, what do I do next. I shall take a break and wait for the paint to dry. I had a chat to my friend Carmy last night and she told me to take it slowly and wait for the paint to dry. So I take a break.
Ok break over, it feels dry to me. Umm now what? Well that blue sure was fun, I think I should do some more blue, yup more blue. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee I squirt some more blue paint straight from the bottle onto the canvas again. Yup, it’s still fun, weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Next I take the same fattest brush I have and start to spread the paint again. Only this time there is a problem. This time it’s not working, this time to my horror, the squirted paint has left white squirt marks underneath the spread out paint. Arhhhhhhhhh. It’s ok, I know how to fix this, more paint, yes, more paint should do it, so I squirt more and more and more paint on until the white marks underneath become fainter and fainter and fainter and then I can’t see them anymore. Phew, that was close.
Who knew painting and being an artist was so much stress. I thought painting was meant to be relaxing and therapeutic. Apparently I was wrong. But I am not one to give up, I have in fact had a couple of little stumbling blocks and overcome them. Gosh I am good.
Right, the blue is blue enough, now what? The moon, yes I think I need to do the moon. After a quick chat to Carmy, I find out that a moon needs more than yellow in it but first I just have to get the size right, I can fine tune the colours later. First attempt I was informed was too small, second attempt too small, third attempt was better. So we go with third attempt.
But...
Looks like we have another problem, the paint is starting to, well, disintegrate underneath, how strange. But I find a solution, pile on more paint, there now, yet another problem conquered. Hmm, best let this paint dry I think. Best give it a day or two, yes a day or two will be perfect.And so, two days later I am back at work.... QUIET PLEASE, the artist is in residence!
Today, I think I shall tackle, wait for it, clouds. Yes, today is a good day to do clouds. Clouds are easy, clouds are fun, and clouds are just the thing to get this painting looking fan-tas-tic.
Clouds are white so I get lots and lots of white paint out and start swirling it onto the canvas. Yay, this is soooooooo much fun again. I swirl here and I swirl there. A little over there and more over here, I swirl like there is no tomorrow, swirl, swirl, swirl. I totally forget that I am meant to be guided by the photo I took and I am going nuts with swirly clouds, but I am having so much fun. I am smiling, I am happy, I am painting like a pro. How good am I! I stand back and admire my work, snapping photos from every which way to capture the feel of the magnificent painting.
I talk to Carmy later that day, she says ‘NOOOOO don’t swirl, clouds are not swirls’. I say ‘but I like swirls, they were fun’. She replies, and I can hear her roll her eyes from here ‘fine, swirl away’, and a big grin emerges on my face again. But, I still have the dilemma of the paint disintegrating before my very eyes. So I do some googling research.
Huh who knew! To start with, I was using poster paint, who knew that was not real paint. I had no idea, apparently I was meant to be using acrylic paint. Pfft fine, whatever, I will go buy some of that stuff then. Next I googled painting videos, huh, who knew, one does not swirl clouds, just like Carmy said, one puts the white paint on then feathers it out or something along those lines. And... according to the videos I was meant to prime the canvas first and then there is a technique for everything and a process to this painting thing. Sigh, all this order is inhibiting my creativity. This is not what was meant to happen. In my naivety it was all just meant to happen.
Maybe this painting thing was not for me, maybe I am not an artist after all, maybe my head was just a tad too big for my shoulders.
Anyway, the next day whilst out shopping I happened to stumble upon an art supply shop and ventured in. It was a big gamble for me because I could see them laughing at me and my unique situation. But, they were nice. The lady behind the counter and an artist customer were both very friendly and told me that, yes I had used the wrong paint, and when I asked if I can wash the paint off and start again, both said ‘you sure can’. So relieved I walked out of the shop proudly instead of hunched over and embarrassed.
When I got home I told my husband the good news as we both thought I had ruined the canvas, he was happy and said ‘oh wait, I have an idea’. The next thing I knew he had the canvas outside and hose poised ready to ‘clean’ it. He said ‘get your camera if you want to document this otherwise stand back, I am ready to wash this thing!’ so of course I ran inside and grabbed my trusty camera.
Amazingly the paint started to come off, and it came off in such an abstract way that it actually looked very cool. I stood there amazed at what he was doing and waited for the frame to start buckling. He even got a brush out and started scrubbing the canvas as some of the paint stubbornly refused to budge. I was kinda sad and shocked to see my painting disappear and to see how rough he was with my work of art. I knew that the canvas would be ruined, so I was resigning myself to that fact when he had finished and hung the canvas up to dry.
But, to my surprise, the canvas is ok, it dried straight and there are no rips or horrible marks on it at all. So I have a second chance, I get to start over; I get to live to paint another day. But this time, there will be no sky or moon or clouds. This time I think I will go abstract, this time I will research before beginning, this time I will use real paint.
Yesterday I was an artist, tomorrow I might be one too.
Keep it up...there is another hidden talent in you Daisy... Slosh that paint on, hose it a bit, it could be worth a fortune one day.. Hey, don't forget to sign it. I want to own a Daisy original one day :-)
ReplyDelete