From the studio...

Today I plan on hitting the studio again. (Picture attached) I was able to start re-working the larger painting that I didn't like. I'm still exploring some ideas but not pushing it. Since beginning regular meditation, I'm finding that I have less frustration with it all and more patience. That is not to say that I don't get impatient, I'm just more compassionate with myself when that occurs.

But isn't painting very zen-like anyway? For me, when I begin painting I'm 100% there, in the moment. My focus is the flow of the work and the work itself. Trying to translate my feelings through the medium of paint onto the canvas. It is harder to do while the kids are on summer vacation, but I'm getting in small blocks of time here and there.

Sometimes I can get my youngest son to participate in the studio. He has his own easel and acrylics and I set him up and off he goes. It reminds me of the story about the visitor to a home where there was a kindergartner. She asked the visitor what he did and he stated he was an art teacher who taught people to draw. Puzzled by this the child after much thought stated, "What? Did they forget how?" It's so true. My son flies through the paint. No plans other than the sheer joy of the process and not worrying about the outcome because it will always be great to him. We all need to recapture that childlike joy. In everything that we do.

I'll close today with this quote from Vincent Van Gogh on the issue of staring at the blank canvas and being intimidated: "You do not know how paralyzing that staring on a blank canvas is. It says to the painter, you can't do anything ... Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the really passionate painter who is daring."

Let's all go forth and be a daring today!

~Michelle