8 ways watercolor has changed my life
My thoughts have been turning to Christmas and how to have the right attitude about the holiday. We are in the season where we are bombarded with conflicting messages and unrealistic expectations, so my goal for the days leading up to Christmas is to fix my eyes on the gifts I've already received. In my watercolor community we are talking all month about how art and beauty fill our lives in a series of posts I'm titling, "The Gifts of Watercolor" but it's really the gift of Life, Love & Beauty.
1. Gifts of watercolor: The Gift of Light
Light is essential to an artist. Light falling on our subject creates form and contrast, reveals color, reflects. We don't need all the light; even the smallest degree of illumination can dispel darkness in the space it occupies, and for me, that's a reminder to persist in doing good when it seems like the world is changing too rapidly to fix.
I will spend the rest of my life studying light and marveling at its power.
2. Gifts of Watercolor: Generosity of Spirit
I am thankful that making art has, in a small way, made me a person who knows the joy of giving. We who make art have been blessed with the gift that is creativity, and our response is to create something that is most complete when it is shared.
So many of you gift your paintings to friends, or paint from treasured photos to honour those you love. Merely in sharing our art publicly, we give a piece of ourselves, and it's beautiful and significant. I believe that this trickles over into the rest of our lives as well; to give a gift that comes from the heart, we receive much in return.
I'd like to believe that in creating art that is meant to be shared, we prime ourselves to be more attuned to opportunities to give from our abundance in other areas of our lives, whether that is in our time, material wealth, words of love, or other ways. I'm thankful for how giving enriches my life.
3. Gifts of Watercolor: The Gift of Flawed Work
Today I'm thankful that making art has helped me be more at peace with being an unfinished work of art. I've always been a high achiever, and with that comes a struggle with identity. I know I'm not perfect, but I've always wanted everyone else to see my polished accomplishments; I hate being wrong more than anything else!
I think maybe that's why God gave me a love of creativity. I once thought that I would have arrived as an artist when I created a perfect painting with no mistakes in it. 25 years in, that has never happened. Turns out, the mistakes are what make my paintings real, and fresh, and true.
I've learned that my art will always be a work in progress. That my best work this year will be under the shadow of the best work I will make in the future. That a mistake can turn a painting in a direction totally unanticipated and wonderful.
This has affected how I view myself as a person, too. I don't shame myself for a failed painting, and I don't have to self-condemn when I make a personal misstep, either. I learned that to truly paint, you have to accept that with moving the brush come mistakes. Putting ourselves in a place where we are likely to make mistakes is the only way to move beyond the comfort zone.
In living a life, we are in a polishing process. Pressure and abrasion reveal the diamond within. When I see my art as having value despite its flaws, I can let go of the misconception that my personal value is based on my performance, and trust that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, a flawed, yet beautiful work of art.
4. Gifts of Watercolor: Community
When I first started painting, I never anticipated the sense of camaraderie that became a part of my association with other artists. My friends in the local arts community have come to feel like family over the years, and since then the internet has added to my wonderful network of watercolor family.
So today I'm thankful for you, and for everyone who seeks to make art a place of fellowship, not competition, of freedom and grace extended in recognition that we are all in different places in the creative journey. I love how we can applaud each other's growth and successes and proffer encouragement and support in the dry spells and struggles.
Thank you, watercolor, for bringing us together.
5. Gifts of Watercolor: Science
When I was homeschooling my kids, I hated teaching science. It never felt right to turn science into a subject with concepts to be learned, and how disheartening to source supplies for experiments with unsuccessful outcomes. But when it's not a subject in school, I love science! I love seeing the laws of nature played out around me through the seasons. Science gives us a framework to understand the workings of the universe.
And I love what science does for a watercolorist. Science helps me understand why I can place a loaded brush on a wet wash and see the color swoosh across the paper, when the same brush on dry paper will hold a defined shape. Scientists dug further into color theory than artists ever would; wouldn't we prefer to think it's magic that creates color, not light bouncing off stuff?
I can anticipate what is going to happen as I paint because of science. The consistency of the laws of nature, of physics that are dictated by gravity, surface tension, evaporation, even cause and effect, these underlie the techniques we learn and rely on as artists, even when we don't understand them or know what they are called!
And because science still holds lots of unexplored territory, there is still a magic about watercolor's workings, and there always will be.
6. Gifts of Watercolor: Freedom
We have a heritage of artists who were misunderstood, whose art was decried or even hated. Whatever your perspective on the “progressive” art of the past and present, it offers to us a wonderful gift; freedom. Not everyone will understand your art. Not everyone understands mine, and sometimes, the closer they are to me personally, the harder it might be for them to connect to what I'm creating. So I am thankful that in seeking to paint myself in my work, I have freedom. Freedom because other artists have come before me and challenged the rules. Freedom because each one of us can paint exactly as we please; our art might be questioned or ignored or disapproved of, but no one can wrestle the brushes out of our hands. If your goal is self-expression, no one can determine whether your painting is successful but you.
“It’s Only Chaos if You Don’t Know the Dance” watercolor on paper
7. Gifts of Watercolor: Fearlessness
I've learned that fearlessness isn't about not having fear. If I structured my life to eliminate fearful situations, it would require a cocoon. Cozy safety on the sofa with a good book, 24/7. But how much I would miss! No great adventure story ever took place on a sofa!
I didn't realize until I started listening to new artists and reflecting on my own creative journey that the emotions that swirl around making art don't really ever leave us. I remembered feeling intimidated by the blank page. I remembered wondering if I would ever again make a painting as good as the one I'd just finished. I remembered fearing to paint to please myself because I worried that no one would understand it, and staring at a new reference photo and thinking "I have no idea how to paint this." And all of those feelings still live inside of me. What has changed, what has made me a fearless artist, has been knowing that my fears don't have to rule my choices.
In life, a mistake can cost us big time. Our futures turn on decisions made. But in art, we have freedom to make mistakes, to experiment, and risk at most a few dollars' worth of art supplies. Our failures teach us what not to do, our risks turn into happy accidents and we grow through stretching out of our comfort zone. Stepping out onto the roof gets a little easier after the first two or three times, and after painting for twenty-five years, I've recognized that the risks that felt so scary when I first started painting aren't really as big as they seem. And in persisting to step forward even when fear insists I hold back, fear gets put in its place; as a voice that helps me weigh risks and press on regardless.
8: Gifts of Watercolor: Flow
Water equals movement in watercolor; it brings life to the medium. We who know this also know that working with water is to invite another party into the painting process; there is only so much we can do to control the paint when water is added to the mix!
It is this beautiful unpredictability that gives watercolor its true beauty. Insisting on a certain outcome is going to leave you frustrated and anxious, as the pigment slips out of your grip across a wash, as blooms emerge and colors granulate, as the painting deviates more and more from the original vision you held in your mind.
I realized when I watched my beginner students paint that there is a time to paint intentionally and a time to allow the paint to do its work. My beginners will fight with an area of the paper, trying to alter the movement of paint and water, when sometimes, the only thing to do is let watercolor have its way and alter our expectations to flow with what is happening on the page. Watercolor will do what it wants, and we see better results by choosing a spirit of collaboration than one of domination over the medium.
Life is a lot like that, too. My teens -- I think in being given teenagers I am being taught how powerfully influential our thoughts are...even though I thought I already knew that -- are in the place where they are seeing all the injustices of life and raging against them, and I'm longing for them to realize how little we can change in life, and how much more effective it is to learn how to change our perspective and choose an attitude of acceptance.
Maybe in watercolor and life both, we can choose the mindset of the Serenity Prayer;
"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."
I have learned in watercolor, that I can't fix my painting to match my vision of how it should be; what I am learning is that that is okay, an outcome can be even more beautiful for being unexpected and moving me in a new direction. If fighting is fruitless to do more than stir up my emotions, I can be like water, changing my shape to find the places where movement can continue and flow can resume.
Watercolor has enriched my life in countless ways. Here are just eight that I am thankful for and reflecting on this month. What does this beautiful medium mean to you? Leave a comment below!
Here is a way that I can bless your watercolor journey!
Click the link to below to get a guide with a list of activities to help jumpstart your creativity or get you out of a creative rut.