I was talking with a friend recently about ideas of things we can do to relax during these crazy days or during times of depression/anxiety. Obviously, there's reading and baking and taking walks and gardening. And drawing or painting have become quite popular. (And I know lots of people were painting because all of Walmart's little bottles of acrylic paint were sold out for weeks during the lockdown in March.)
And I was telling my friend that I always wished I could draw. Goodness, if I could draw like this guy, in his time-lapsed drawing of Gandalf, that would be freakin' incredible! (If I could have any piece of art out there, it would be this one. I love it!)
But alas, even my stick-figures are sad and pathetic, hiding their heads in shame. I simply cannot picture something in my mind and transfer it to paper. It just doesn't work that way for me.
But, I told my friend, I did find one way to paint that is relaxing and creative, that doesn't need me to be exact. In fact, it's almost like watching the painting paint itself. Like "color therapy," letting the colors swirl and blend as they want to, not needing to control every little paint splotch.
I call it "Water Colors" because it ends up looking like rainbow water.
These are the painting I've done so far:
(This was my favorite one. And I'm glad I took a picture of it, because I ended up giving it away to a dear friend from Australia. It was the only way to say "thank you" for something special she did for me.)
(Not a favorite, but whatever. It was just to experiment with shimmery paint.)
This last one is a double-canvas painting that I hung in our stairwell because I needed a large colorful painting for a huge blank space. I can see it from our bedroom every day.
Of course, they're not great. There's nothing note-worthy about them. But that's not the point. The point is to relax. To create something without any stress at all. To enjoy the process.
All I do is squeeze blobs of paint onto something (I usually use the plastic, rectangular bottom of a disposable lettuce container). And then I dip my paintbrush into one color (such as blue) and make "waves" at the bottom of one corner of the canvas (or heavy paper made for acrylic painting). And then I dip the brush into that color (blue) and another one (purple), each on their own half of the brush, and I paint more waves next to the blue ones, covering more of the canvas, letting the colors blend as they want to. Then I drop the blue, do some waves in just purple, and then do the next layer of waves with purple on half the brush and pink/red on the other half. And you just keep going like this until the canvas is covered in rainbow water. (I almost never wash the brush between colors. I just let them duke it out with the other colors, bowing out when they want to.)
If I need to correct something, I try to blend the colors on my lettuce container until it closely matches the area I need to fix, and then I can fix the part of the painting that needs tweaking. It doesn't need to be exact, just close, and that's what makes this so relaxing. And fun. It's fun to watch the painting grow while you watch, never quite sure how it's going to turn out, being pleasantly surprised at what develops.
I also like to add a bit of "reflected cloud" in the rainbow water. All I do for that is add a little white on half the paintbrush with the color I want to blend it with. And just swirl some "cloud reflection" into the rainbow water.
And when the base layer is the way I want it (and maybe when it's dry), I simply add a few "water lilies." I get some pink and white on the paintbrush, paint some "petals" wherever I want them in the painting, and then add a swipe of green underneath it like a lily pad.
Like I said, you're not going for "exact," for precision. And it doesn't really matter how it turns out. What matters is that you have relax, that you enjoy watching the painting develop in front you, that you delight in the beautiful blend of colors.
Another way I love to relax: Taking pictures of flowers. My favorite way to do this is to overexpose the picture and zoom in close, and then to just let whatever comes up come up. You're never quite sure how it's going to turn out, but that's half the fun! It's like letting the photograph create itself. Here are a bunch of my favorites (there's more here):
