Sometimes my brush takes me there
“Whimsical Garden” 30 x 48, Acrylic on canvas | Jen Day
Sometimes, what starts out with an intent of a direction towards one thing, morphs in to a totally “That was not what I intended to do” thing. That is where this painting went, and I have to tell you, it was probably the most fun I have had painting.
This was a rather large canvas, so I originally started drawing geometric shapes, lines and circles with the intent to make a very abstract painting. Quite a bit of paint was used in that initial direction. But as I kept laying paint on the canvas, I thought it started to look too hard-edged. I then thought “oh let’s add a flower here and there inside the circles”. Well, that’s when I gave up control of the direction and my brush took over (I think…or maybe I’m going crazy). One flower turned in to two, two flowers to five, one kind of flower and then the next kind of flower. “Hey this flower needs a neighboring twig”…”there really should be some green here”…”some blue here”…”does this look like its underwater?”…”is this water or sky”…”who cares, more blue, and make it wavy”. I (or my brush) was OFF TO THE RACES!
Like I said, this was a rather large canvas, but this was done in one sitting one sunny Saturday. I used to do that early in my painting journey, I used to finish paintings in a day, then I got all detailed and focused on bringing the reality to my subjects to canvas, and those took many days (sometimes I even had to walk away from them for a bit). But there is something exhilarating about just going rogue and letting the canvas take its own shape.
What I love about this painting is its fluidity and colors. I feel I could reach in to it and cause it to ripple like water and just watch it come back to being still.
I belong to a group of Artists in my area, and I happened to just send one of them a picture of this one. Not expecting too much of a reaction, I got quite the opposite. It was shared amongst others in our group, and the feedback was inspiring! My brush did a good job. Fast forward a few days and an opportunity was presented to submit artwork to be used by the Village of Oregon, WI to be wrapped on those ugly electrical boxes we all see plopped around our streets. I submitted this one on a whim, and it was chosen along with a few other works by artists in the area! I am so excited and can’t wait to drive by this when it is finally installed (I will update with a few photos once done I promise).
This painting was a good learning experience for me. “Letting go" of expectations and self-imposed disciplines can be good for the soul. Painting for yourself is the most rewarding, and trusting the process of where no direction can take you, often takes you to the best places.
So, let your brush take over sometimes, it’s a wild ride!
