Painting Therapy In Romancing My Soul.

Professor Rebecca Robin started 10 of us on this journey called "Walk Me Home Safely." The course would help us prepare for the second leg of our life. In view of the fact my father had just passed away and I saw how important it was to walk him home safely, I quickly signed up for the course. There are many components of the course I enjoyed but my top favourite has to be this unit called " Romancing My Soul." This means picking up an activity that we have always wanted to do but never did actually. Picking up that activity is to indulge our soul what we have always rationally deny it. We do not want to be filled with regret we for not fulfilling our bucket list while on death bed. I wrote down several activities I wanted to pick up - watercolour painting, dancing, Mandarin .... And so I began my foray into watercolour painting.

I found on Youtube many tutorials on how to paint. What did I want to paint seems to be the bigger issue. I also didn't know where to buy watercolour paints, papers, brushes and other accessories of watercolour painting. I started by doodling pictures of flowers - something I enjoyed doing from childhood. While doodling, I remembered that as a child I often "borrowed" my father calligraphy brush and ink and copy some of the Chinese scroll paintings he liked to hang in our family home.We didn't have much money when I was a child and painting black, white and grey pictures were the cheapest form of painting. I have now learnt where to buy the needed materials at cheaper prices ( with glee ) from online sources of course. In the Malaysian school syllabus, Art is no longer compulsory once we finish Form 3 for Pure Science students so unless you were gifted in Art ( which I was not), we no longer had the pleasure of painting therapy. However in my career as teacher, senior assistant and school principal, I would intentionally walk through classes when the students were painting and enjoyed the lovely pieces done by the students and teachers. Initially I painted many watercolor floral pieces. I found Shayda Campbell loose floral pieces very loose and very forgiving. That first pic up there is painting while copying from a piece Shayda Campbell painted. I found myself very much relaxed after I painted - I slept better.

In this very first picture I painted, I had wanted to paint violet lavender stalks but my basic 12 paint box didnt have lavender colour and the brushes I had were too big. Yet somehow I liked this play of different colour intensity created by the watercolour and the one brush I had then. So the lavender became ahem ... bluebells. One morning I awoke with a dream of a horizontal sprig of cherry blossom. I googled all the pics on cherry blossoms sprigs but i found only vertical and diagonal sprigs. In desperation I quickly painted out what I saw in my dream before it eluded my memory. After I completed the painting, I decided to add some Mandarin words and gifted it to my mum. Honestly the writing of the Mandarin words were way way more difficult than painting and I used many stickers to stick over my bad Chinese handwriting. When Mum recieved my gift, she was concerned she would get it dirty or creased so she asked me to laminate it. That request started me on a foray with shops that did the lamination service. To my delight, I found a nice shop in Cyberjaya that could print lovely little cards from my paintings.

There was a day in September where I fasted for 24 hours. I painted 3 pictures that day and painting made me forget I was fasting. That to me is wonderful as I have a voracious appetite for food. Lately I have been painting landscapes pics by Karen Rice. For reasons unknown or basically due to lack of skill, my paintings looked quite different from whatever I try to copy. I learned I can afford to be different and I can make it different according to how i feel within me. Yes, I like the way painting empowers me to be the boss of my picture. Can you spot the differences between the two pictures below?

My sister in law has taken two of my paintings to be framed for my 92 year old father in law. A friend took one picture to be framed for our common friend. I feel as though some pictures call out to me to me to be painted. Everytime I looked at bluebells pictures - it was as if they call out to me - "Paint me paint me." I loved processing feelings and thoughts. I think about the direction of the light source in the picture. I think about the focus of the picture. When I finally painted the path of bluebells wild flowers through the woods, it helped me work through the sadness i first felt. Then as I ended the picture, I was able to change the direction of the light source and I was also able to blot through some major mistakes and change the direction of the path that led through the woods. It gave me a great sense of empowerment to be able to blot through some major mistakes and yet create a picture that did not looked like it had mistakes. My feelings also changed. I become more aware of my subconscious and my unconscious parts of my soul. Indeed I am romancing my soul. I loved working through the bluebells picture so much I decided to get it framed for myself.

I find myself giving myself more time to process my thoughts and feelings as I paint. I like the inner reflections especially if it is of things I am not aware of. I like the slowing down process as I paint. Another change I like is learning to persuade others. I usually don't bother to persuade people much but lately as I begin to think how to change the path or the light source or the focus of the painting, I also begin to think how people's perspective can be changed. Hmmm .. I really like the changes that have come as I paint. We only just begun ...