Hi Guys! Hope you are having a great day!
Time for a Change
As an artistic type of person, at my best, I tend to be fiery, passionate and determined, at my worst, I can be excessively broody and intense.
Over the past weekend, I somehow found myself overflowing with both types of energy.
Now, for the past three years or so, I had been actively trying to push down, hide and deny colourful, creative and often straight up weird part of my personality, mostly due to a pretty bad bout of social anxiety. I suspect this was brought on by a combination of my freshly started business failing during lockdown, a nightmare pregnancy and too little time spent around supportive people.
It was clear that I had some serious healing to do, and that was exactly what I did, in my own little ways. Over the past few months, I have done a few simple things, like reading an amazing and very helpful book, which deserves a post of its own, I started reconnecting with and even forging bonds with new and truly great people and most recently, I have come to the realization that I cannot keep ignoring what I am passionate about for the sake of finding something I am good at based on what everyone else wants and thinks I need.
Took me long enough to realize this, and also, that the thing I have been so desperately looking for, has been the very thing that has always been there, in this case literally right in front of my face. Patiently waiting for me to return to it.
That thing, at the risk of sounding a bit dramatic, is and always has been my greatest passion and source of happiness. Painting!
Planning for the Future
Realistically speaking, I am all too aware that it isn't really something I can make a living off, not easily anyway. Currently I am faced with the seemingly monumental task of finding a 'real job' next year, which is pretty damn scary after being a full time stay at home mom for the past few years. It has been rewarding though and I will never regret getting to spend so much time with my child. So I'll figure it out somehow.
Getting back into it: A bit of Background
A little bit over three years ago, in an attempt to distract myself and soothe the pregnancy stress, I started drawing and painting on the door to a little storage space under the stairs of my home.
I'll admit, it probably seems like a slightly insane thing to do, but we have always been planning on removing these old unattractive doors to replace them with something more aesthetically pleasing and modern. Add to that that I was (still am) out of canvas at the time. Seemed like I had no choice but to attack the door with my paintbrush!
Due to the aforementioned issues and other general fuckeries of life, I was eventually forced to abandon the project, even though, based on its location in the house, I still had to see it everyday...which brings us to the past weekend!
Issues early on, and overcoming them
I will do my best to do a decent 'creation of' and explanation of the actual work as soon as possible, hopefully in the following few weeks, if all works out and I am able to finally complete it. Upon getting started again, I soon realized that I was completely out of paint. The urge to create was too strong to ignore however, so I eventually resorted to using nail polish to complete parts of it. Not the best option as drying UV nail polish on a vertical surface one tiny section at a time is really not my idea of fun!
Sneak Peek!
Work in progress, covered in toddler scribbles and memories from the past few years, patiently waiting to be completed.
As the final work is not yet complete and still needs a lot of work, I will only be sharing a few behind the scenes type of photos today, even if most of them are just of me crawling around on the floor attempting to clean and paint hard to reach parts of it.
Almost an hour of scrubbing and cleaning was needed before those old red scribbles were light enough to be painted over. Also, sorry about the potty in the background, I was more focused on painting than making nice looking photos! Promise to be better next time haha
Clearly, we are going to need loads of paint to fix this mess...my lovely little Floki also decided to show some tail. Cats are such a joy.
Working on those hard to reach parts is never fun, but it needs to happen. I also twisted my ankle, almost falling of a bench when trying to get to the top parts. Guess you have to sacrifice for your art.
All in all, it was an amazing weekend full of tiny revelations and getting lost in art, accompanied by one hell of a playlist! (Also, another story)
Looking Forward
It won't be easy, but I plan on sticking with it, fully pursuing this art thing (wherever it takes me) and hopefully finding that day job soon, just so I can can be able to stock up on proper paint and supplies again. I have a feeling this project is going to finish any last bits I have.
After the longest time, things are truly looking up, and for that I am more grateful than mere words could hope to explain.
Apologies if this is a little bit scattered all over the place! Hope it all makes enough sense!
Have a great day, and thank you for being part of my journey!
Credits : All photos are mine
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