UNLEASH YOUR INNER ARTIST: FIVE INCREIBLE BENEFITS OF PAINTING

It was a day like any other, except that day I felt especially exhausted from the bureaucratic office work I had been doing for years, and more than ever I felt trapped. You know that feeling when you wake up in the morning and you have energy and various ideas come to your mind, and you eagerly want to start something new, something that will make you feel alive but then you spend eight hours at work and you come back home and you don't know where that morning enthusiasm evaporated because the only thing that you want now is to curl up in bed and just sleep until next morning. And so it goes, circle in a circle, therefore, I decided that day, although as you can imagine this decision was building for many past years, that I do not want to keep killing my ideas, desires, courage and dreams anymore, I no longer can afford to waste more of my time, killing my uniqueness just to be that well adapted adult with steady incomes and state job. I know who I am and who I can be and it is certainly not someone who finds meaning in ordinary average happiness, only it is not happiness but masked cowardice and apathy.

That day, while feeling all fed up, I stumbled upon this quote from Carl Jung - “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Herein lies the key to your earthly pursuits.” I felt it screaming at me, like a slap, like a sob, as a sign from someone who knows me and sympathizes with me, like a universe reminding me to start living again aligned with my purpose. Somehow, I always knew that there was and still is an artist in me, especially then when I felt so unspeakably trapped, I remember clearly that every evening or morning when I was standing on the balcony, I thought how just in a few giant steps I would cross those distant white peaks of the hill that stared at me every day, and that something magnificent would wait for me. I would watch clouds changing their shapes from dragons to human eyes and think how a great story could be created from all these scenes that were coming and disappearing in a few seconds. Indeed, my imagination is always my escape when this world becomes too cruel and hopeless, and through painting I rediscovered how wonderful, gentle and meaningful this world is at the same time.

I just have to create. Ever since I started painting, I feel that I am much closer to who I want to be, becoming someone calmer, more patient, has more faith and optimism, and most importantly, everything suddenly started to make sense. If you feel a little like me, I would suggest you get brushes and start creating today, tomorrow, months, and years from now, and see for yourself what I am talking about. I would like to remind here that not all great painters knew from their early childhood that they would be painters when they grow up and the best of them wandered in a desperate search for the meaning. I have to mention here the book by Irving Stone “Lust for Life”, about the life of the great Van Gogh, the book was exceptionally empathetically and beautifully written, and I would recommend it to anyone, as it is not a book about a famous painter as it is about a struggle and long search of a man who deeply feels love for people but also immense loneliness due to misunderstanding and non-acceptance of those around him.

So here are my five reasons for painting or doing any other form of art whatsoever, and you will certainly find more.

You will begin to really pay attention to the world around you, which will make you feel as if you are seeing it for the first time in its power and beauty

When you start painting you will discover colors you never knew existed, you will begin to notice shapes, shadows, a play of light you would never notice before, clouds that transform every second into something new and you will want to make all those small barely noticeable moments eternal and save the dying flowers. You will begin to think about distant lands in a completely new way, of the human face, hands, body, and emotion, it will be as if you are looking at the world with new eyes. The cloud will never be just white or gray again, you will find so many unexpected color palettes in it, when it happens you will have the appetite for a more beautiful, colorful, original life that you can create, and you will feel like you have been sleeping and solely observing until now so that you can finally really look. You will no longer take for granted even a leaf playing on the wind, sunsets, colorful sky, or wrinkles on a human face when it is smiling, you will think about everything you see as if there is some mystery around it and beauty that just need to be put on the canvas.

Your chaos becomes your weapon and your anxiety turns to flowers

I have always been a very chaotic person with a vivid imagination, always wrapped in my chaos, having so many ideas and wanting to see so many places and be so many people, which made it, therefore, harder to choose a road that would give me peace and meaning. Therefore, the chaos in me created confusion, obstacles, distraction, daydreaming, illusions, and need to escape. However, in painting, that same chaos became my weapon, my tool, and my inspiration. All my anxiety and restlessness, all my re-examinations "Why am I like this and not like that", all the thorns growing inside me created beautiful petals of the most colorful flowers and since then I have not stopped hugging my chaos and pouring it on the canvas. Painting is so forgiving when it comes to making mistakes, as Bob Ross said, another painter you probably heard of, that mistakes are just happy accidents, and truly when you come to the point where you no longer know what you are doing but you are still so invested, you will be rewarded for and by any mistakes you make.

You lose control and surrender it for something more meaningful

For as long as I can remember, I've always had to be in control of everything around me, maybe it's down to my rising sign, personality, upbringing and people around me, but I've never allowed myself to lose control of myself, my actions and my life. Such a state becomes exhausting, difficult and fruitless, and over the years you begin to accumulate numerous fears. On the other hand, in painting, losing control means that you will paint a better painting, it means that you will create something that did not exist before and that you will not even know how you made it. Anything bad that could happen while painting, making a mistake with proportions, mixing wrong colors, putting color in the wrong place, not seeing the values, etc. could become the very thing that makes your painting special and unique. Losing control while painting very often will, if you do not give up on the painting, make it more original, free, real, and yours, which is the most important. You will be richly rewarded because you will learn that in painting, not being in control means reclaiming your power, your voice, your courage and your intuition, you will learn that it means having faith in yourself.

Interestingly, your faith in God becomes stronger

As a child, I often prayed before going to bed, although no one ever really taught me to pray, I somehow knew and felt that there was something or someone Godlike. As I grew older, I started having doubts about this idea, thinking that atheism was something I could relate to, however, due to some personal struggles I turned to art, and precisely through art I regained my faith. Really, the more you paint, the more beautiful, humane, and perfect the world will look to you, you become more aware of how many incredible, original, strange, and colorful creatures God created, and as you imitate him, you will know, without any doubt, that he is the greatest artist of all. You will know that someone had to create everything that exists on this amazing planet so carefully, patiently, cautiously, caring as a parent, ingeniously, as an author who signed his works so subtly, leaving his mark in our faith, soul and dreams.

You get to belong to one amazing group of most courageous and honest people

You’ve probably heard of painters like da Vinci, van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Picasso, Kahlo, Kandinsky and many others, even if you do not know much about art. Still, you probably know something about the difficult, turbulent, poor, unfair, chaotic but inspiring lives they led. You may have heard of van Gogh’s difficult struggles with himself and his pursuits of a meaningful life to finally express himself and show the world his compassion for those who suffer, about Monet's flower garden that was visited by people around the world and that he nurtured and painted with the care of the parent, how Kahlo fought with herself and against the nothingness of death, or admired the beauty of Renoir's portraits, who believed that painting must be a feast for the eyes as the world is already hard as it is, and all this is just a tiny bit of one large community of special people who were brave and who did not take an easier path. One of my favorites Henry Rousseau was a civil servant as well like me, actually a customs officer who started painting later in his life and he painted jungles and tigers he never saw, creating one mystical wild world he longed for. As you may suppose, art requires enormous amounts of courage, trust, and hope, it is not for the weak ones, no matter how vulnerable they seem. Indeed, although no one would dare to compare with such minds or strive to create such masterpieces the thing is that whether you wanted it or not by just painting you became part of an infinite, free, bohemian, visionary community, your tribe even when it seems that you are completely alone.

So, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and remember “What did you do as a child that made the hours pass like minutes?”