The other day, I was working on a painting I’ve been envisioning for a long time. It’s a cute little tufted titmouse sitting in a redbud tree with a beautiful blue sky behind it. I started the painting years ago. I coated the canvas with a background of sky blue then started working on the branches of the redbud tree. After that, came the flowers. Each one turned out a little different and didn’t actually capture the same color as all the redbud blossoms I looked up online. It frustrated me. So, I stepped away from the painting for a while.
The outline of the titmouse was outlined in pencil on the canvas, but I never started. I had the notion that I had to finish the blossoms first, then I could work on the cute little titmouse. Well, the other day, I threw those notions out the window and painted my little bird.
It took me hours. I couldn’t quite get the coloring I wanted on the bird. I wanted a pretty, light blue-gray and ended up with something too dark or too white and the blue didn’t come out at all. I lost count of how many coats I put on the bird. Something I didn’t feel was quite right, I would cover up after it dried. Then, there were a couple moments where I wished I hadn’t covered up the layer before, because I believed it was better than what I was putting down. It was getting frustrating.
I took a step back from my little bird. Focused on something else, didn’t even look at it. Then, when I actually did come back to my titmouse, it looked so much better than I originally believe. No, it wasn’t the exact same thing from the picture I was using to paint it, but that just means it’s mine and not a replica of a photo someone took.
I wonder how many times in life do we coat and cover things with layers because we don’t like what’s originally there? People have a lot of layers too. Some of them are true layers and some are just used to hide what they don’t feel is just right. However, if you take a step back, you’ll find that the layers work really well together. Just like a painting.
nikki diekemper 