Iv’e been painting landscape in watercolor for more than a year now, nothing serious, just my sort of relaxation every weekend…something to do to get my mind off of the real world. Since then, some who had the unfortunate chance to glimpse at some of my paintings will almost always asked me, “Why always landscape?, why not paint still life or nude or the chaotic organization of urban jungle?”
Or: ” Can you paint me?”…
I wasnt too shy to say that I dont know how, because I never had a formal education on art, drawing , painting, all those fundamental knowledge needed to be able to paint/draw almost anything around you. I know I can learn how to without having to go back to school, all I needed is a piece of blank paper, pencil, brushes & paints.
Their questions & my candid answer made me feel inadequate, made me feel ashamed to even put my works on the walls of our living room, knowing that most of my friends are into art one way or another. Made me feel like I have no right to be talking anything about art & paintings when I don’t even know how to draw my own set of hands realistically without making them look like I have a Leprosy or something…
So there was a time when I hid all my painting materials, torn old paintings, & just forget about it & focused on my day job; watched the painful reality on CNN about some parts of the world are going hungry, people dying, economy dwindling, etc. Focused on what my next pay would be for: to survive, physically in the real world & to be able to buy that pair of jeans, etc.
In other words, I tried to find a remedy to the itch on my hand to pick up a brush every time I see how the color of the sky contrasts beautifully with the soft, fluffy, white clouds . How the setting sun turned almost everything around me with a golden glow…
My first aid was: “I dont know how to paint that soft, fluffy, white clouds realistically like they way are on the sky.” That will prompt again a series of questions like: “You dont know how to paint this, or that?!?” or “Can you paint me something using my favorite colors?” I dont wanna feel again like Im not conforming to others opinion by not knowing how to paint the same exact blue sky they see above.
For sometime, I was looking for answers for creativity block, inspirations, buying useless art books. Asked my bf for some advise because he studied art in College. For some time I was listening to people how to mix colors to make your tree look realistic, I even tried sketching still life from my own kitchen: I tried copying the reality like the way other people see it. And every time, I aways feel disappointed & frustrated of the outcome. I felt like somebody was chocking me.
Because I was looking for answers in all the wrong places.
It took me a year to realize why I paint only landscape; why I only want to paint landscape; why I only want to put my paintings on my bedroom wall & not in the living room where everybody can see it.
The answers to the first two questions: the natural world moves me in a way that the material world cant; the rapid changing of modernization, & how its destroying nature (how we cant live w/o our gadgets) seems so overwhelming sometimes that we forget to stop & wonder at a beauty of the fallen dried leaves, look closely how the sun turn a tree into different shades of green from sunrise to sunset. We ignore that sweet smell of the earth after the rain.
The answer to the 2nd question: I wanna lay down on the bed, look at my paintings & remember the feelings while I was painting them. That feeling of calm & freedom of expressing how I feel through some splash of paint on a blank piece of paper w/o the fear of people judging the color of my sky…expressing how I look at reality.
Painting landscape is is my only way to stay sane in a very materialistic & superficial world. So as not to forget that there’s more to life than that pair of new jeans, that the rush I get from painting is far from the shallow satisfaction I get from any material things I can have.
I hope this part of my journey & how I feel show in my paintings: looser strokes, more on my impressions of the reality than a photorealistic way people would want to see.
And here are the most important lessons I learned the hard way:
1) I should paint what moves me, how I feel towards it and stop listening to others telling me “You should mix this much yellow to this much blue to get this kind of green.” Well, now I make my own green.
2) How we paint (style & stokes, color mixing, etc.) is as unique as our handwriting. ; not everybody feels nostalgic everytime they watch a sunset; not everybody likes the rain…
3) …and it’s okay to feel different.
4) I can paint freely if I let my impression of the world flow through my hands towards the paper.
