Experimenting With Paint

Ever since I bought a dozen canvases on sale, I've been meaning to paint something to hang in the house.

Last year, I made a couple handprint canvases with Nathan and Caleb's handprints. After that, I took a break from painting because I had no idea what else to paint, nor did I have the skill to paint anything decent.

And then we moved into this big house. There were bare walls everywhere and I knew painfully well, from carrying the boxes, that I still had quite a few blank canvases. Wanting to decorate the house frugally, I thought about painting something again.

And I kept on thinking but never got around to developing a solid idea.

Eventually, I bought a couple prints from Ikea just to fill the space.

That made me even less motivated to paint.

Until yesterday.

I'm not really sure what pushed me over the edge but I decided it was time.

This was going to be a practice piece so I just used a canvas that had already been painted on.

I used a nice blue called sea breeze, and white.

There were many times, even in the early stages, when I thought, oh man, I should have left it the way it was...

I had seen some really gorgeous bokeh paintings by Kal Barteski on her Instagram so I thought I'd give that a try.

Let me tell you, staring at pictures will not magically turn you into an artist.

Studying layers of colour will not automatically teach you how to mix colours or where and how to layer them on.

Visualizing different brush strokes and brush handling techniques will not make the brush move, or the paint come off the way you want it to.

And if you have absolutely no idea of what you want the final product to look like (except for the fact that you hope you'll know it when you see it), you probably won't know when to stop.

So you keep going for a little longer, adding a bit here and a bit there. You start to get the hang of something so you keep going.

I was painting to pass the time as Andrew finished his assignment, so around the time he finished his assignment, I decided to call it a night as well.

I think I'll sleep on it and decide if it's done in the morning.

I'm not sure this painting will be hung in any prominent area of our house, but I'm really happy I pushed myself to try something new.

Apologies for the awful photo colours/quality. I blame the paint fumes for clouding my judgment. Probably should have painted in a more ventilated area (aka not at my computer desk). Thanks for your understanding!