Confessions of an Artist - Perspectives

Publicerad 10 july, 2021

Perspective

My father is a very talented, mostly self-taught, painter. I have been surrounded by his art and his interest for art all my life. When we were kids he took us to after-school art lessons. I remember sitting in those lessons and not really being too keen on what I was creating. I enjoyed painting as much as any child loves to create with their hands and play with colours but I did not feel I had any innate talent for it as I struggled over my watercolour landscapes. I do remember watching a much older student in the art class working meticulously on his painting which was deeply detailed scenery and people. It was delicately done. I was in awe at the level of skill in this and his incredibly patient execution of each drop of paint immaculately placed on the canvas and I think somehow I associated that with painting and making art. I was not very good at that level of detail of minute precision, beautiful as I found it, and I never really continued to paint when I was left to my own devices and outside of my parental home. 

 

Space Flowers - a canvas in oil

 

The interest to paint started to come back to me in my 30’s and I started to gather art material whenever I saw some on sale. It still took further years before I put colour to canvas and that was due to my yoga studies. I was learning to draw sacred geometric patterns under the guidance of my Yoga Master. 

 

I immediately recognised that it was an activity that I longed for but I also immediately recognised, as I saw my doodles in my sketch book, that this was going to take practice. I was not all too pleased with my drawings. I kept practicing on my sketchbook. One day I had an epiphany and started to draw differently… and I wrote in my journal…

 

‘’Recently I put colour pencil to paper to draw. I started to practice. At first the images I was trying to draw were small and did not have the life I desired of them. Suddenly it occurred to me to draw them bigger. Taking a whole page for just one single part of the image I was depicting, I let loose colour on to paper to find that I actually made something out of it: lively, interesting and attractive. Wow. So blown away was I at this revelation. Sometimes we think too small. Sometimes our talents lie on a much larger scale than where we have been focusing, literally. I realised that I really enjoyed painting abstract and on the big picture.’’

 

above work in progress

 

Sometimes we think too small. Sometimes our talents lie on a much larger scale than where we have been focusing, literally.

Once I started working with large canvases and large pieces of drawing paper with big pieces of sponge and wide sweeps of the wrist I felt so much more at home and started to have so much more fun and have been painting often and a lot since then. I have even sold three pieces. However the greatest earnings is the sheer fun of being involved with the paints and papers.

 

My next step is to get a roll of canvas so I can create even bigger surfaces to paint on, larger than the largest mounted canvases that I have been able to lug home under my arm. I can hardly wait to see what appears when I have more room to play! 

 

In fact I drew the parallel that in life in general I am good at seeing the big picture. I was trying to draw small and detailed when my natural talent lay in drawing large and abstract. It was a life lesson for me. 

 

above play in progress...

 

May we see the big picture when we are stuck in the small issues and may we love the details that create the tapestry that becomes our experience of the whole.

 

Where can you shift your perspective today to uncover hidden talents in areas where you thought you might be lacking skills? Take a different perspective, maybe your eye is in the detailed execution, maybe your eye is the grand scheme of things?

 

Above yellow and green images are some old works in progress. To view my art portfolio of 'finished' works, and to also enjoy many wonderful Sweden based artists, follow this link. https://www.konst.se/mithilakara