Five Minute Friday // Paint

It has been quite a number of months since I last participated in Five Minute Friday - in all honesty I have lost any inspiration to just write. But today, I felt the pull to join in this blogging link up once again, and I am so glad I did. Thank you, Lisa Jo for the encouragement to 'silence the inner critic' and just write for five minutes. 

I had been planning this for weeks - envisaging over and over again what I intended to do. The process of putting paintbrush to paper in order to create some art for my daughter's bedroom. 

It has been years and years since I picked up a paintbrush, and in the years between then and now I have lost my paintbrushes and got rid of many of the painting supplies that I used to own. But these days, I am feeling the pull to create with paint. 

As a teenager I longed to be artistic. I would look at the friends and family around me who were able to capture beauty through their brush strokes in a way that I longed to do. And so I would paint, then, without fail, I would tear what I had made into pieces in the hope that I could make something more beautiful out of the brokenness I had created. I was never content with what I had done, and somehow hoped to disguise what I saw as the flaws in my brush strokes by creating abstract collages - layering paper and paint with sketches and tissue paper. 

It wasn't until my Father once told me that he admired the way I tore up my paintings in order to recreate something new, that I saw that perhaps this process I had developed out of my own insecurities in my artistic abilities, might just be a positive one. Even so, I left painting behind in my first year of university, and found that I could satisfy my need to be creative by baking and taking photographs. 

Back then, the process of painting was therapeutic, but also tinged with disappointment in myself. And I think how different things are now. This afternoon, I finally made it happen. I lay my daughter down to sleep, knowing that I only had forty minutes before she would wake up. I ran downstairs, gathered my newly purchased paint and brushes, ignored the chores that need to be done, and got down on my knees to paint. As I pulled the paint across the paper I imagined how I will teach my daughter the difference between shades and dark and light through these circles of colour I am creating. I smiled with a thankfulness that I am no longer hindered by the feeling of disappointment in what I might or might not be able to make. Instead, I revelled in those few moments of quiet, with the sunshine casting glorious light over the paper where I painted shades of colour, with the inspiration of the hand stitched quilt beside me, that first gave me the idea that I am now bringing into being with my paintbrush.