Oh My Stars!!!

After much hesitation and vacillation, I signed up to take a watercolor painting class this fall. I bought all the suggested supplies for the class and they have been sitting in a shoebox in my office for over 2 weeks, untouched and unopened.

Worried that I would not know enough before class I checked out 3 watercolor painting books from the library (I know, I know, that’s why I’m taking a class—old habits of a perpetual over-achiever). The books actually fed my fears as I looked at the professional-looking sample paintings and sketches.

“Oh my God,” I sighed, “I haven’t drawn anything for years and years. I shouldn’t have signed up for this class. I don’t know enough.”

“Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.

Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

Resistance is experienced as fear; the degree of fear equates to the strength of Resistance. Therefore the more fear we feel about a specific enterprise, the more certain we can be that that enterprise is important to us and to the growth of our soul. That’s why we feel so much Resistance. If it meant nothing to us, there’d be no Resistance.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

I felt intimidated by the brushes, tubes of watercolor, palette, and paper, and a little worried about “doing well” in the class. I wondered if I should have signed up for the class at all. Would I really like it? What if I was a terrible painter? Maybe I should just forget about it. It was just a silly dream.

But today I decided I would use my new painting supplies to put some color in my sketch book using one tube of watercolor, one brush, and a bit of water.

I covered the dining room table with a plastic table cloth, got out all my supplies, sat down, and just looked at everything for awhile. Part of me wanted get up and walk away—with echoes of old fears and judgments whispering in my mind. Instead I took a deep breath, squeezed a dab of phthalo green into my palette, picked up a brush and dipped it into water and then swirled it in the paint.

I made a simple brush stroke across a page of my sketch book.

I felt a giggle bubbling up all the way from my toes.

“Oh My Stars!” I murmured to myself.

“This is SO MUCH FUN!” I loved how the brush moved so smoothly over the paper and how by changing the angle, or the speed with which I moved it, the paint being applied changed its shape and texture.

I played today and didn’t try to paint anything realistic. It was enough to play.

“Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

I haven’t sketched or painted since my freshman year in college, when as a new art major I got a C in my first art class. What a blow to this “smart kid’s” soul it was! “Only a C,” I whined, “I’m changing my major. I’m no good at art.”

And I did change my major the same week, and changed it again, and again, until finally I had to pick something that would still let me graduate in 4 years with the varied credits I had.

This isn’t a story about my college years; it’s a story about how we can let our own judgments or those of others color an activity that makes us happy and then because we believe that we’re no good at it, quit doing it.

Sketch and doodles

It’s been at least 40 years since I last painted or drew. Last week I picked up my sketch pad and a pencil and started drawing. It was challenging and uncomfortable at first. And I have much to learn. But it’s fun and I look forward to many more hours with pencil or paint brush in my hand, feeling that deep joy bubbling up within me.

What would make you giggle and exclaim, “Oh My Stars” ?  Maybe it’s time to make time for some play in your life.

May you walk in beauty.