My most favorite parts of the painting process are the beginning and the end. Though, I guess that’s how it goes with most things in life.
There’s nothing more attractive than a blank canvas. I usually have to sit and stare at each one for a little while before I begin…pace in front of it a few times, look at it upside down. (Yes, it looks the same upside down, but it helps to break outside the box.) The bigger it is, the longer I stare. (They don’t ever become less daunting either, no matter how many I’ve completed.) There’s an intimacy that takes place. I’m ready and willing to give and create something, and the canvas is ready and willing to receive.
Anyway, the most fun part is called the “chaos” layer. That’s what my art teacher in college would call it. Regardless of what you want the finished product to look like, regardless of what the finished colors will be, you cover the entire canvas with asymmetrical lines and shapes with your hands, a pallet brush, a wet paper towel, your feet, a banana peel, what have you. It’s important to make sure you don’t develop a pattern – there’s no pattern to chaos. It ads texture and quite the backdrop for anything it becomes.
The end is of course amazing because, after all that work, I may get to see magnificence, or I may not. I don’t ever know until that last stroke. It’s like a really awesome suspense thriller from the lovely people at Netflix, only I don’t have to pay $10 bucks a month to see it.
And if per chance I did create magnificence, the possibility that it may become part of someone’s home, part of their lives, some small part of their being, I consider myself lucky. My most favorite place in the world is home, and just as that intimacy develops with the canvas, an intimacy develops with that possibility of being a part of someone’s home. It’s a great privilege.
That’s what living is all about right? Sharing parts of ourselves with each other, real parts. Scary parts. Happy parts. Embarrassing parts. Intense parts. Regretful parts. Chaotic parts. Pimple-covered parts. How else do we learn from each other? Or love, for that matter?
And, after all that happens, nothing but a big, fat smile ensues.
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