When I Start Painting

 I’m not a professional or an amateur artist who has passion in painting or visual art. I’m just an ordinary person who doesn’t know much about art especially about painting techniques. When friends who happened to know more about visual art browsed my paintings and said This one looks beautiful or Your art is pretty or Hey, you have a style like those naïve paintings artists, you could expect me responding them with a thanks and big grin. It's always nice when others can appreciate your creation. And it feels good especially when they can enjoy it because to be honest, I know my painting is messy because I never learn how to paint and I paint to please myself and never thought that others would like it.

 

I started painting about one and a half year ago. I was inspired to give it a shot after I read some articles about healing with art. Started small and shy just like a new kid at school, my first piece was made out of water color pencils. Then I tried to be more adventurous by combining color pencils with oil pastels. The result was decent. I liked what I created. Then one day a friend of mine who’s also an art teacher suggested me to be more willing to experiment and express myself with those two coloring tools. She showed me how to create pretty colors by blending the oil pastels using my fingers. It was fun. It was dirty but it was fun. For months, I fell in love with this oil pastels blending and smudging on papers. I could create up to three paintings or drawings a day.  

After that, the same friend told me to try to start using acrylic paint. I felt nervous and the gremlin inside my head started to raise its voice. Do u really think u can paint that well? Do you consider yourself an artist that you think you can paint with real paint?. My friend sensed this hesitation and she laughed and said Don’t worry, I believe every body can paint. You just have to let the artist within to take charge. So there I was, bracing myself to go to the nearest art store and bought one set of acrylic paint, three different sizes of paint brush and one water color pad. I went home with a shopping bag full of artsy things and of course, enthusiasm. Like a child that ready to explore new toys, I took them out of the shopping bag and started to paint. Apparently, I enjoyed mixing and combining many colors into my paper. Without even realizing, I’ve painted more than 50 painting in a year.

There’s always the first time for everything. After getting used to paint on watercolor pad, one day I felt quiet ready to strike my brush on a canvas. Again, there’s this little voice full of bully telling me that painting on a canvas would be such a waste of money especially because I’m not a professional artist so why would I even bother buying a canvas. I should’ve felt happy enough with a paper. But I knew this words were bogus and I encouraged myself to paint on a canvas anyway. Luckily, my friend had some used canvas and she didn’t mind if I used them. And surprisingly, they were huge. So I re-painted these huge canvases white and started painting on it. And it was sooo nice. I never knew painting in a huge media could make me feel so free. The full movement of my hand, the rich amount of the paints that color whatever media I used for painting,  the strike and pressure of the brush in my hand, the whole process felt more like a dance to me. I’m satisfied and pleased. It’s not really about the painting, I guess it’s the process that makes me feel good. I think the same thing with life. It’s the journey that we enjoy, not the destination.