These days I've picked up painting as a regular hobby of mine.
I remember as a child I was always very much attracted to colours. As my father himself liked to draw quite a bit himself, he had enrolled my big sister and me in an art school so that we could learn a bit about how painting and sketching in general worked. Sadly, that one year I spent in that school was a total waste of time for me, because as I was really, really young at that time, the teachers didn't really teach me much outside of drawing a single sad papaya on a paper.
But even at that age, I did get acquainted with paints and brushes, even though I wasn't allowed to touch them, having to to stick to crayons and pencils myself. But paints, they had always pulled me in. And I carried that attraction with me long into my teenage years, even though I was still stuck with my set of colour pencils then.
I got my first professional set of acrylic paint about three years ago. My sister bought me a twenty-four pieced box on my birthday, and I remember being over the moon about it. I remember eagerly sitting on my desk to try it out and then storing them away neatly in fear that I would run out if I used them too much.
Safe to say that plan didn't go really well for me, as with time the colours dried up, and I had a tough time trying to get them back to their formal glory.
So, my fascination with paint had actually stayed as a fascination and only that, watching it from afar without really touching. That was until now. With a new set of colours and brushes bought on a whim, I decided to finally try them out for real. And even if I'm nowhere near as good as everyone else, I will still say that painting makes me tremendously happy.
There's just something about picking up a brush, you know? The anxiety of fucking it up, the thrill at the start of any creation, the focus, it all helps to calm my senses down. And even though all I paint now are either trash or recreation of all the easy youtube tutorials I stumble upon, I'll say that I'm making progress. Even if it's just a little.
Like these two pieces I've done recently with my set.
Even though they are at best scattered and at worse just plain out horrid, I can still say proudly that I'm learning. And this time around, I really hope to learn until I can make the paintbrush in my hand sing when it touches a blank paper.