UNANTICIPATED CREATIVITY

I have been “collecting” journals and art supplies for most of my life. I love the IDEA of creatively putting yourself onto paper to share yourself with other people – but I only ever get halfway there. I have SO MANY creative ideas and I love the IDEA of executing them. I get so into it buying supplies for projects – THE SHEER NUMBER OF ACTIVITY SUPPLIES I’ve accumulated over the years would absolutely astound you. I love reading blog posts and watching YouTube videos and learning the new skill. I take in as much as I can about something new, as fast as I can learn it. 

And then I make a few candles and draw a few kitchen plans and design a few cabinets and learn some new software and take some courses and make a few bracelets and take tons of pictures. I keep running lists of future craft ideas and cheeky sayings to put on yoga mats (or antique mirrors, or coffee mug candles) for an online shop that doesn’t exist (yet). I take all the steps necessary to create a hobby and take my creative ideas seriously, but once I’ve learned something new and tried it a few times – that’s all I need. It never feels like I have to keep trying that thing. I’m onto the next creative idea or new and interesting subject as fast and as excitedly as I loved the last one. 

Howeverrrrrrr. Painting has never quite let me let it go after just once try. I have come back to trying to think about painting more than once. More than quite a few times. But painting has also intimidated me the most (this is possible future shadow work?) and I’ve never really let myself explore the activity enough to gain confidence in it. 

On a birthday date last fall, my brother and I stopped at a trendy DC antique store and someone was selling a somewhat unimpressive painting of a pug for a somewhat offensive price. And when I gawked at it, I acknowledged out loud that the only reason it bothered me was that I felt like I could do a better job… and I annoyed myself because I’d never tried.

He said that he had been meaning to find someone to paint their pug, Ruby, and that this was the perfect opportunity for me to give it a shot. 

As usual, I loved prepping for the activity (TIKTOK PAINTING VIDEOS HEART EYES EMOJI) as much as I loved the activity itself. In fact, planning to paint Ruby was so exciting, that I decided to also paint 4 other dogs in our family and give them as Christmas gifts. Which turned out to be the best feeling gifts I’ve ever given and the paintings were fuckin’ awesome and the reactions were amazing and they made me want to paint every dog on the earth for every owner on the earth. Which probably won’t happen, because I will SURELY find another hobby to take up my time before I paint every SINGLE dog…

BUT. I have taken a few commissions since the initial family of paintings and have LOVED painting peoples’ dogs for them (and other people and spaceships). And it would be wild to actually make money making art that makes people – and me – feel the way those paintings did. And it feels like painting still has a ton of time left for painting before I move on to my next hobby.

SO. If you’d also love a painting, let’s talk details. Via this form right here.