Art Therapy

Remember when you were good at art? You were five. You were in Mrs. Moe's kindergarten, you had a pan of watercolors that you mashed your crappy plastic brush into the dry disk with a blob of water and you were off! No subject was out of bounds! No shape intimidated you. I've seen a horse! Of course, I can paint that. It didn't matter that it looked like a tornado with streamers. That's a horse. The human form - you were an expert! Sure, arms come straight out of the side of the head. Family portrait time! Frank Lloyd Wright wishes he could design homes like you can kid! And the landscapes. My god. Clyde Aspevig would have wept. 

About a week ago I bought a pan of watercolors that's been in my Amazon cart for a couple years now. I had an urge to remember what it was like to use watercolors. Watercolors intimidate the heck out of me. But it's the 42nd of Decanuary and you watched democracy crap its pants live on TV and you're like, man I sure wish I was in kindergarten just painting goddamn rainbows because this is too hard to deal with right now. 

But Amazon prime means these paints have been sitting here a while. I am very good at using my adult money to buy things my inner 5-year-old wants, and then not ever using them. I had today off work and decided today was the day I bust out the pans.

Adult me has an art complex. I want it to be perfect out of the gate. I also know that's not how art works. The reason artists on youtube and TikTok make it look so easy is because they didn't have a gap between 1986 and 2021 where they didn't do much artin'. They've been honing their skills to get this good.

So I sat down in front of youtube and my brain was too overwhelmed. I had to pick the right beginner tutorial. Finally, I decided it had to be a nice landscape (good and blobby) and I wanted to do northern lights. Youtube lead me to believe I had a nearly endless choice to watercolor beginner northern light tutorials.

But 5 year old me took control of the helm for a hot minute, and she was very persuasive. We'll call her Joni. Because when I was 5, that's what I went by.

Jo: "I should probably find a tutorial that actually talks about technique and step by step so I can follow-along..."

Joni: "Nah."

Jo: "I'm super out of practice, and watercolor is hard. There are actual techniques I could learn and use."

Joni: "Boring! You watched that 10-minute speed painting. And frankly, none of these are right. You saw the northern lights, they were more yellow-green, and you've seen trees. Just go grab a reference photo if you're so worried about it, but I am pretty sure we got this!"

Jo: "I dig your moxie. That tutorial did seem pretty easy. And there were notes on the screen as to what she was doing. If I get a reference photo I'll be sure to do this. How hard could it be?"

Five minutes in Joni took over and I forgot about the reference photo. I was just twirling my brush in the pans and slopping some paint on the paper. I panicked though when I looked up and realized it was not my reference photo at all. 

Chaos insued. It was just wet blobby and terrible. I spread more paint and water to try to "fix" which just made things worth.

Jo took the helm and was starting to berate "So stupid - why did you think you can paint? FUCK THIS IS TERRIBLE"

But then Joni took the wheel and was like, "Well - you're in to deep. Might as well just keep slopping paint."

So I did. 

It's horrible.

Gabe heard me muttering in the office and swearing while I worked. "How's it going?"

I don't remember if I answered.

When I finished I cackled like a mad scientist with the mania of "IT'S ALIVE" as the subtext of the cackle. But it passed the time, and it felt good. It looks awful. But I had to remind myself - it's not about the skill at this point. It was about sitting down and just doing something for myself. Smearing some pigment on a blank page. Expectations and ruined the experience, until I let that shit go.