First Watercolor Painting from Class
Recently I started taking a watercolor painting class through community education. I was so excited to take my first painting class. “Yay!” my inner kid was exclaiming. What joy I felt picking up the brush and playing with color at home before the class started.
Then I went to the first class. Not only was it not the beginner class I expected, most of the students in the class had been taking the class with this instructor for at least 2 years.
I felt overwhelmed and totally at sea as the teacher handed out a photocopy of a photograph that we would be painting that day. As she called everyone up to the front of the classroom so that we could see her demonstrate painting washes of the lightest colors in the painting, I noticed everyone else taking notes about which colors to use where.
“To travel alone is risky business, especially into a wilderness; equally risky is to have dreams and not follow them.”
― Robert F. Perkins, Into the Great Solitude: An Arctic Journey
I stood there like a deer in the headlights of a car, frozen. As the instructor sent us back to our desks to complete the first part of the painting, my head whirled. “What colors did she use again? Which brush? How do I mix the colors? How much water should I use? Huh?” Fear of making mistakes in this fast-paced class battled with my desire to learn about watercolor painting.
“Often the fear of not knowing what to do or the fear of doing something wrong stops us in our tracks and keeps us from starting. If we can let go of this fear, we open ourselves up to a much larger world of expression―a world where anything of possible.” ― Flora Bowley, Brave Intuitive Painting
I bravely started pulling some color into the center of my palette as I had seen the teacher do, added another color and some water and mixed. Next I started brushing paint onto the paper with uncertain strokes.
I felt totally inept and lost. The teacher’s brisk instructions and corrections as she leaned over my shoulder and suggested that I “soften those edges, lift some of the color from that area, and add some more interesting shapes to break up that negative space,” left me confused and anxious. I thought I had softened the edges already. So what was I missing? By the time I had articulated my question, the instructor had moved back to the front of the room to demonstrate the next part of the painting.
Second Watercolor Class Painting
By the end of the class I felt exhausted, inept, and depressed. “Huh!” I thought. I expected it would take some time to learn, but I didn’t expect to be thrown into the deep end so soon.
This was not the class I had in mind when I signed up. At first I thought my discomfort and unease was the “awkward teenager” effect, because I was learning something new. “Stop taking it so seriously,” I told myself. “Make it play, have fun.”
I tried to find the play but didn’t succeed.
Third watercolor painting from class
This week I attended my third watercolor class and my experience continued in the same vein as the first class (and second class).
By the time I left class I had a headache, I felt terrible, and all I wanted to do was escape.
“What’s going on?” I asked myself.
“I’m not having fun. There is NO JOY in this!” I realized.
I noticed, that in this class, I felt totally obsessed with outcome. Instead of it being exploration and play, it was all about creating a picture that was like the one the instructor demonstrated. There was no play, no exploration, no joy in that practice for me.
“Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With The Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman
It is possible that others in the class find the structure works for them and they are able to enter the realm of play. For me, it did not work.
I contrasted how I felt over the weekend at a photography workshop which was pure joy for me and was all about exploration and doing what I love, with how I felt when I left class and realized that my plan to finish the class just because I had started it was soul killing. My body was telling me loudly and clearly that the class was not what I needed.
Process, Not Outcome
Today I said “NO!” to continuing this class, so that I can say “Yes!” to joy.
“The moment in between what you once were, and who you are now becoming, is were the dance of life really takes place.”
— Barbara De Angelis
I choose to focus on process, not outcome. I’m back on the joy journey. Today I played with color washes using one color and then added some experimental strokes using different brushes. It was fun to do this simple exercise.
Playing with washes and different brush strokes
I am exploring books that give me ideas of activities to explore, techniques to try, and ways to play and create using watercolors. One painting book that re-ignited my enthusiasm and joy and reminded me why I chose to start painting, was Flora Bowley’s Brave Intuitive Painting: let go. be bold. unfold. Her approach reminds me to listen to my own inner wisdom and to paint with a playful attitude.
“We are born with, and continue to possess, deep wells of inner wisdom and creative impulses just waiting to be listed to and acted on. The key to unlocking these inherent creative forces begins with letting to of the fear and negative stories that hold us back in order to make space for the new, positive stories to emerge.” — Flora Bowley, Brave Intuitive Painting
I took a short detour away from the joy journey I was following and my body reminded me. It took me awhile to listen. It’s easy for me to listen to my thinking mind and to ignore the loud signals of my body. But I AM learning to listen to my body and to also check in on the language I am using. If I find myself striving, pushing, comparing, judging, competing or struggling, I know that I need to stop and reconnect with joy.
Is there someplace in your life that you need to let go of outcome and embrace process?
When was the last time you listened to your inner wisdom?
Is it time for you to reconnect with joy?
May you walk in beauty.
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