I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way — things I had no words for. – Georgia O’Keeffe
Hi friends, how’s it going these days? Are you happy with your work, your study, your current relationships? Hope the answers are yes. Today I’d like to share with you one of my biggest hobbies - painting that plays a vital role in calming my soul, how I show my inner emotions through paintings, the flow state and how I found out my passion through making art are completely amazing.
Back in the days when I was a freshman at university, painting, doodling or sketching for me was just a hobby that I usually played with an affordable box of crayons or a pencil and a paper in my spare time. Needless to say, I totally dived into the colorful world with the variety of shapes, shades and imagination at that time. One thing that I couldn't deny was I could take hours for painting without being annoyed and exhausted but for studying it seemed impossible. Nevertheless, this hobby was gradually fading out due to tons of homework, voluntary activities and part-time job which made me feel busy all the time and stressed out as well. One day, the idea of painting came back to me and I fossicked around for boxes of colours for a while and then started to paint and doodle all over my notebook. To be honest, they weren’t beautiful at all but at least it helped me partly express my thoughts and feelings very well at that moment.
The period of Covid pandemic has been very awful, you know, lockdowns and community transmissions have been affecting both negatively and positively on our mental and physical health. However, the terrible situation gave me more time to make art, not only learn more how to paint better but also mix colors properly on Youtube and sit for hours just for creativity and imagination. That’s a great way to voice my emotions because there’s no word to describe them properly, I think. Sometimes, my friends looked at my painting and asked me why the color was so dark and sad but I did not have a right answer for it. I vividly remember the painting was all about a house standing on a bleak and windswept hilltop. That picture referred to my family issues which I couldn’t share with someone else at that time I felt so stuck and emotionally drained. Lucky for me, I find that immersing myself in instrumental music and creativity was the way out of this mess. Another time, I used light and vibrant shades to create art such as a bird with orange and blue furs or a hill full of bright flowers when I want to imply that I feel more adventurous and happy.
Life is full of ups and downs and sometimes it’s difficult to give a verbal description of things like feelings or thoughts to friends or even our closest family members. I believe that there’s always a solution for problems. Dancing, composing, drawing, cooking, vlogging, writing or doing whatever as long as you do it full of joy, express yourself creatively and show up your inner world comfortably. I chose painting as one of the ways to say what I think, how I feel and nurture my passion as well.
One more thing that I feel through making art is feeling the flow in which I seem to lose all sense of time and space. Feeling like going with the wind when I let creativity and imagination lead me to the next idea that I haven’t intended before. For so many times I have forced myself to make art in the perfect way as I want but after all It just gives me the feeling of stress and nothing else. After several times I'd finished my paintings with a disappointing feeing. I know for certain that there might be wrong here. Therefore, I’ve gradually embraced my mistakes and allowed myself to break the rules in my creative capacity. That is so magical and wonderful.
I can’t imagine how life is going on without art, colors and music. It’s such a tedious and stuck one that no one wants to choose to live, isn’t it?
