I’ve been opening up paints for over 25 years and what I hadn’t considered until recently is that they, in fact, have also been opening me. Testing my skill, my endurance, my ability to accept flaws: in my painting and in myself as a human.
After all this time, there is a comfort in the simple exercise of twisting off the paint cap. There’s a will, an intent to continue. Yet I still remember how unfamiliar and tentative I felt the first time I ever opened a tube of paint. I had no idea the power it would have over me. How it would cause a reaction in me. How the tube of paint once on the canvas would test me—what would I do with that Cobalt Bue? How does my colour make you feel? it would silently ask. And that challenge the paint offers me has not changed. For example, I will always have an emotional reaction to the paint colours I’ve mixed and my brush strokes that have brought it to life on the canvas. If I fail to have a reaction, then I might as well give it up, in my opinion.
Case in point, I hadn’t touched oil paints in well over a decade but just last month I faced my past. Before me were a series of my unfinished oil paintings from the ’00 decade that I had taken out of storage. And to complete these relics, I needed to dust off my box of oil paints. First task? Taking inventory: look at this tube of Raw Umber, Ultramarine Blue—old friends!
My fingertips of a younger and more eager self were invisibly imprinted on these tubes of paint. But attempting to open decades-old tubes I first had to twist off my inhibitions. I had to allow the tubes of paints to open me.
Was I worthy of these beauties that lie on my table, scrunched, and squeezed within an inch of their lives, but still giving. Still asking me “what will you do with me?” So what I did with them was proceed to complete the paintings, making changes and refamiliarizing myself with the unique properties of oil paints. Once I reached a stage of ‘satisfactory for now’, I stood back and analyzed the canvas. I saw flaws aplenty; yet I had to stop. I had to walk away not knowing if they were a success. Only time will tell that story.
Because I’ve been painting for over 25 years though, opening a tube of paint whether it be oil or acrylic, is now simply a necessity, a ritual. It’s even urgent on occasion. It has to be done. I must hold a paintbrush slathered in Cadmium Yellow Light mixed with Cadmium Medium Red. The voice of the paint asking me what I’m going to do has quieted. Instead, I open my mind to what I’m going to do and as powerful as Cobalt Blue may be, it no longer intimidates.
I cannot imagine my world without paint.
What once was a question of whether I was worthy of the paint no longer exists. The paint belongs to me. It is a part of me.
Despite all those paintings I painted with love for family and friends, some were discarded as though they were worthless. This has also taught me an important lesson–the value of my time and creative gift. It has reminded me that my creations are for my own joy. That I must, as all creatives must, be cautious about freely sharing my/our creative gifts.
So, opening a tube of paint now is as natural to me as drinking a glass of water. And what the paint has taught me is to open up, to find joy, to play, and most importantly to accept my imperfections on and off the canvas.
What has your creative practice opened in you?
Liked this post? Try My Art Journey and the Lessons I’ve Learned part I and My Art Journey and the Lessons I’ve Learned Part II
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