Surely you have individuals in your life, among friends and acquaintances, who are artistically gifted; who see a dog and understand how to transpose it on paper while respecting its proportions and specific shape. I am sure you know somebody who can pick up a pen and a sticky note to scribble a flower you recognise, without any doubt, as a rose – not a daffodil, not a daisy, not a poppy, not a general flower a child puts together, but most definitely a rose – in just a few strokes.
I was never one of those people.
I could always copy well – trace over somebody else’s drawings, then colour it all in or change it, combine different elements to make it my own. I could not, however, build a drawing, a painting, starting from an idea all of my own. Or, horror of all horrors!, starting from what I saw around me. The belly of any animal I’ve ever tried to draw was to round, its head too long, legs too small in comparison to the body. You could not tell whether it was a horse, a pig or a cat.
However, for some reason, I have always had a desire to create, to express my inner life with colour, pencils and paint. Throughout the years, I tried drawing, clay modeling, painting, creating deocrative objets and jewelery from polymer clay, lettering and much more, with varying degrees of success.
By the time I became an adult, I accepted my strenghts laid elsewhere.
Until one day I came across a tutorial of a lady painting with watercolours. She was joyous, she made it look easy, her words convincing me even I could do it. So I did. I went out, my conviction still on shaky grounds, to buy some very basic supplies – a sketchbook and some tape. The rest I would repurpose from what I already had at home; I was sure I’d find watercolours somewhere in my children’s room, among their old school supplies, as well as some brushes. My water container became an empty jar of pesto genovese. All this to say that you do not need expensive professional supplies to start or even to feel motivated.
I had no idea what the end goal was, what I was actually trying to achieve or for how long I would persevere. But even before finishing that first painting, I realised I wanted to enjoy the process. I decided to look at it as self-care, as a piece of time that I carve just for myself, away from my family, my work, my every-day duties. I didn’t want to see it as an obligation, to try and fit painting into my day no matter what and feel stressed or guilty if I failed to achieve that. Therefore, I couldn’t commit to painting daily, let alone finishing a painting each day.
Once I started painting, a few setbacks arose. Since I most certainly had no idea what I was doing, I never thought of checking whether my sketchbook had sufficient g/m2 to support watercolours before buying it. The paper starting peeling, balling up, some colour bleeding through onto the next page. I was also not sure the tape I had brought home was the right one, since it removed the upper layer of paper.
Nevetheless,, looking at my first-ever finished watercolour painting gave me a sense of accomplishment. It was an easy, child-like painting – a few simple shapes, then painted over in layers, more of an exercise in patience than artistic technique. In spite of that, with the use of a coloured pencil and a few additional simple strokes, the end result was something I felt proud of.
I did not finish it in one sitting. Not even in a single day. I took my time, started over a couple of times, discarded two pages of my sketch pad before deeming the third attempt worthy to be finished. Most definitely not perfect or without missteps, it still is the final product of somebody who achieved a result beyond her wildeast dreams, somebody open to learning and improving with time, practice and persistence.
If I can do it, anybody can, truly!