Though “Letting Go” is technically my re-debut piece, “Into the Unknown” feels like my flagship artwork. It feels like all my hopes and dreams on a canvas.
I started out just wanting to put the trees (#foreshadowing. Yes, you only see one.) in my reference photo on the canvas, make it pretty, and get it sold.
But then the painting toooook me.
I sketched the trees (two of them) but then the girls wanted to paint (note the CJ. & C. in the signature) I had some left over paint from whatever mess I was working on, so I let them spray all the water, and scrub all the colors on while I sat there SO stressed out that they’d get paint on the carpet or on them or on me… oh wait, I already got paint on myself.
I put their wet canvas on my easel for the next day, trying not to think about it too much. It looked like a rainbowy mess and stressed me out thinking how to move forward from there.
But I did.
I just attacked it!
Fueled with friendship and caffein from time with a coffee-giving friend that morning, my creative flame stoked by that coffee-giving friend’s seal of approval of a painting that I thought was 60% done, but she said, “No, it’s perfect! Gimme!) I set to work.
In my head, up until that point, I’d felt like I was living a lie. I thought I understood the changes in my life around me, but because things weren’t falling the way I thought they would, I started feeling crazy, inadequate, powerless, and just plain wrong. I get so down on myself when I’m that sort of wrong, and tend to spiral.
But as I continued painting, I started feeling a shift.
Now I couldn’t quite “see” what it was that I was painting. I could see paint and a tree, but I didn’t know where it was going. I couldn’t for the life of me get the other tree in proportion to my favorite tree, so I nixed it, and tried to stay curious and just do the next right thing as I played around with my girls’ favorite color: rainbow.
At one point I had this sort of info drop and I felt in my soul, “I’m not crazy. I’m right, I just don’t know the steps because there are no steps. We’re flying into the Unknown, and we’re doing it now. It starts right here, on this canvas, in my home, in my heart. There’s a sort of magic and wonder in the air, and I don’t need to know how to get there. I can’t anyways, because it is the Unknown!” I was so stoked, I had to share the painting with another friend, even though it looked like a hot mess to me and I still didn’t know really where it was going.
I continued on, just doing the next right thing, until suddenly I SAW IT! In a crazed painting frenzy of joy I brought it to about 95% completion, snapped another picture, sent it to my friend, and continued on to finish the piece.
That night I went to gather the process photos, and do you know what I saw??
Do you KNOOOOOW what I saw????
The difference between the first “hot mess” photo that I sent my friend and the 90% completed piece I was so delighted with was almost indistinguishable.
I was so angry and so happy at the same time. Angry because those pictures were 2.5 hours of work (and children) apart, and so happy because isn’t that just like our lives?? So many times the picture/answer has been right in front of us, but we just couldn’t “see” it! Or, perhaps, it just hasn’t been time, or maybe the means to get from A to B are like the ingredients of a batch of cookies— A little spread out, but man, you just mix them up, add some heat, and BAM you have the best cookies of your life!
So, my beautiful people. May your life be like a batch of cookies, and your hands be those of a baker.
May you fly on wings like eagles’ (or flamingos) into the unknown.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Yes, flamingos fly. My 4 year old told me and I am now educating you. At the time of her informing me, I informed her that they don’t, absolutely totally gaslighting her as I corrected her sharp behavior and taught her how to handle disputes in the future. I then thought I should follow my own advice and found a youtube video (her approved resource for all knowledge) to show her how they don’t fly, and immediately had to give her so many apologies and snuggles because it showed video evidence that flamingos, in fact, do fly.
So, fly my beautiful friends. You may not know you had it in you, but you DO! As awkward and unnatural as it may look, you do!
INTO THE UNKNOWN
30” x 40” Acrylic on canvas
1.5” Edges are painted to continue the image all the way to the wall, making framing optional.
Shipped ready to hang.
Free domestic shipping. International shipping billed separately.
10% of all proceeds go to Set Free Monterey Bay
Though “Letting Go” is technically my re-debut piece, “Into the Unknown” feels like my flagship artwork. It feels like all my hopes and dreams on a canvas.
I started out just wanting to put the trees (#foreshadowing. Yes, you only see one.) in my reference photo on the canvas, make it pretty, and get it sold.
But then the painting toooook me.
I sketched the trees (two of them) but then the girls wanted to paint (note the CJ. & C. in the signature) I had some left over paint from whatever mess I was working on, so I let them spray all the water, and scrub all the colors on while I sat there SO stressed out that they’d get paint on the carpet or on them or on me… oh wait, I already got paint on myself.
I put their wet canvas on my easel for the next day, trying not to think about it too much. It looked like a rainbowy mess and stressed me out thinking how to move forward from there.
But I did.
I just attacked it!
Fueled with friendship and caffein from time with a coffee-giving friend that morning, my creative flame stoked by that coffee-giving friend’s seal of approval of a painting that I thought was 60% done, but she said, “No, it’s perfect! Gimme!) I set to work.
In my head, up until that point, I’d felt like I was living a lie. I thought I understood the changes in my life around me, but because things weren’t falling the way I thought they would, I started feeling crazy, inadequate, powerless, and just plain wrong. I get so down on myself when I’m that sort of wrong, and tend to spiral.
But as I continued painting, I started feeling a shift.
Now I couldn’t quite “see” what it was that I was painting. I could see paint and a tree, but I didn’t know where it was going. I couldn’t for the life of me get the other tree in proportion to my favorite tree, so I nixed it, and tried to stay curious and just do the next right thing as I played around with my girls’ favorite color: rainbow.
At one point I had this sort of info drop and I felt in my soul, “I’m not crazy. I’m right, I just don’t know the steps because there are no steps. We’re flying into the Unknown, and we’re doing it now. It starts right here, on this canvas, in my home, in my heart. There’s a sort of magic and wonder in the air, and I don’t need to know how to get there. I can’t anyways, because it is the Unknown!” I was so stoked, I had to share the painting with another friend, even though it looked like a hot mess to me and I still didn’t know really where it was going.
I continued on, just doing the next right thing, until suddenly I SAW IT! In a crazed painting frenzy of joy I brought it to about 95% completion, snapped another picture, sent it to my friend, and continued on to finish the piece.
That night I went to gather the process photos, and do you know what I saw??
Do you KNOOOOOW what I saw????
The difference between the first “hot mess” photo that I sent my friend and the 90% completed piece I was so delighted with was almost indistinguishable.
I was so angry and so happy at the same time. Angry because those pictures were 2.5 hours of work (and children) apart, and so happy because isn’t that just like our lives?? So many times the picture/answer has been right in front of us, but we just couldn’t “see” it! Or, perhaps, it just hasn’t been time, or maybe the means to get from A to B are like the ingredients of a batch of cookies— A little spread out, but man, you just mix them up, add some heat, and BAM you have the best cookies of your life!
So, my beautiful people. May your life be like a batch of cookies, and your hands be those of a baker.
May you fly on wings like eagles’ (or flamingos) into the unknown.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: Yes, flamingos fly. My 4 year old told me and I am now educating you. At the time of her informing me, I informed her that they don’t, absolutely totally gaslighting her as I corrected her sharp behavior and taught her how to handle disputes in the future. I then thought I should follow my own advice and found a youtube video (her approved resource for all knowledge) to show her how they don’t fly, and immediately had to give her so many apologies and snuggles because it showed video evidence that flamingos, in fact, do fly.
So, fly my beautiful friends. You may not know you had it in you, but you DO! As awkward and unnatural as it may look, you do!
INTO THE UNKNOWN
30” x 40” Acrylic on canvas
1.5” Edges are painted to continue the image all the way to the wall, making framing optional.
Shipped ready to hang.
Free domestic shipping. International shipping billed separately.
10% of all proceeds go to Set Free Monterey Bay
