Painting

Sometimes you've just got to do it...bring out all those paints and brushes, pallettes and paper, and let your hands work at mixing colors you never imagined were possible...deep purples that capture that moment in the dark sky just after the sun closes his eyes, bright lime greens springing up on paper like fresh leaves awakened after a winter sleep, a blue so deep even the bottom of the sea can't compare...colors that bring life to our world. I have been wanting to paint for awhile now, just try my hand and see what transforms with no real thought to where my mind may take me. Today I pulled out all those materials, all that mess that means a bit more cleaning up, but lets your spirit free, lets your mind's eye take shape and form. My canvas changed throughout the course of my painting session, first yellow and then green as I added blue. Somehow a fluid tree flowed onto the canvas, it's ball shape filled with brown twigs, as a hill came into the background, flowing on a slant where children could roll and laugh and a dark sky filled with the colors of a sunset after a storm. It was a quiet picture, no movement, a bit dark, as if the world is ready to go into sleep after dusk, parents singing their children to sleep as their eyelids get heavy and finally close, pets having been walked to do their duty and laying quietly in their basket at the feet of their owner reading a book in the lazy boy chair. I am a creative person in many ways, but painting, as much as I try, has never been my forte. I want to create like the masters with the results of a kindergarten classroom. Still, I felt relaxed. I wanted another canvas on which to create, more brushes to fill with yet another new color, more time to let my thoughts form into something solid and touchable. Painting felt good. I may not clean up that mess today. I may just leave it and see what transforms tomorrow, feel that peace again, see what new shapes go from my mind to my hand to the paper...see that even if I am not a master, it is fun to pretend, to be as free as that five year old proud to bring home their treasured work of art to show off on the refrigerator door...