Savoring
If you follow me on Instagram, you know I recently posted a photo of a piece of art that I took quite some time to work on. It was much different from the soft, fast, loose washes I usually find myself in…
I made a long process out of lifting out a grove of poplar trees, and then adding details — trunk color, texture, branches, grasses, then shadow on snow. Each day, I would sit down and work a little more. I found I really enjoyed the meditative facets of losing myself in each little detail. Enough to make me sit at my work bench and realize, I didn’t actually want to be done painting this piece. That when it ended, I may even be a little sad.
The reason this feels somewhat remarkable to me is because I recently had a bit of revelation that I tend to focus too much on the end result and not enough on the process. I can often get ahead of myself because I’m trying not to make a mistake early in the piece. It’s funny I picked watercolor (or rather, I think watercolor picked me) she leaves very little room mistakes and yet has the audacity to request I also loosen the hell up and let go.
This is what makes creativity so magical. That it’s not productivity. It isn’t a column of items to check off a list. It isn’t about finding a series of steps to create the perfect piece of art. It’s about losing myself in the repetitive flick of my paintbrush, marveling at the way the pigment spreads as it touches wet paper, or stepping back and seeing that I’ve managed to create perspective after painting a few shadows. Savoring the process itself is the entire point of the painting, never really the painting itself...
I’m currently sitting on an evolving collection of new paintings, some quite large and some quite small… All waiting for finishing touches, matting and framing to be launched in my spring exhibit at the New Scenic Café in Duluth, MN on March 18th!
This will be an exhibit entirely composed of original artwork — somewhere between 27 and 30 pieces. Which will wipe out my entire original inventory that is currently on my website. Any and all of my original watercolor paintings will be for sale through New Scenic Café from March 18th-May 12th. I am beyond honored to return. My Summer 2023 exhibit there was wonderfully successful. Stay tuned in to my newsletter for more details as I’ll share the majority of them with my mailing list!