simple p1easures: painting

With anxiety and the forces of COVID-19 making its way directly into my life, I needed an outlet. A project that demanded my utmost focus. Something that drew my attention away from my misgivings on the future, yet was somewhat productive and didn't leave me feeling icky with unproductiveness.

My favorite reasons to paint (besides the joy of creating itself) is the fact that I can show it and gift it to someone. To create something meaningful not only to me, but for someone else is something that I drew pleasure from. Over quarantine, I transformed into a pet-painting gift giver. I searched for reasons for painting my friends', and my own pet. It began with one of my closest friends to suggest painting a pet for another friend's birthday would be a good present idea. I thought: "wow, a wholesome, fun, creative, and cheap way to gift someone something that is memorable and valuable sentimentally".

And so it began.

I painted my friend's lil dog for her birthday in the summer, my first ever serious acrylic painting.

Since then, I fell in love with acrylic painting (since before I was much more a watercolor painter)

Then, it was my other friend's birthday in the fall (it was a cat).

I decided one day that I needed to paint my own beloved dog. It was one of the best paintings I have done, and was a project I had poured myself into for a whole day.

The focus it required, and the peace that I felt while doing it was magical. Being so immersed into something-into simply creating-eased so much of my own anxiety of feeling unproductive, or worries for the future. I guess I could call my painting experience more as a distraction from the many worries I had, but this form of art really helped put me in a place of meditation and focus- something I hadn't done in a long while.

I learned a lot about how much I enjoyed this medium, not only because of how much I like painting, but because of the sheer amount of patience and focus I had to spend on one thing for an entire day. I acknowledge the importance of simply sitting down and just focusing on one thing for such a long period of time, and how it helped me deal with some anxiety or mindset where I felt like I needed to rush and finish things quickly.