After having spent most of my adult life pursuing music, I recently decided to try my hand at painting. I had dabbled in art throughout my life, but never seriously.
In an effort to find the perfect painting to place on a blank wall in my home, I couldn’t find one, so I thought I would try to paint one! Thus began a new venture that has found me wonderfully immersed in a sea of paint, paper and prayer!
I originally thought that when I faced my easel, painting would be a process of calculated gestures and predicted outcome. I intended on being in control and assembling the key ingredients much like one does with a recipe.
What I soon discovered was far from that! Within the first few paintings I made a startling yet exciting discovery! I would have my painting almost completed when suddenly the final section I was working on took a different direction! Something unusual had occurred from how the calculated me painted. I didn’t know how I had made this beautiful, free area of the canvass, but it was more more alive than the rest of the painting! Thus I experienced conflict: did I repaint the new area to match the rest of the old painting – that had been nearly completed – or did I attempt to repaint the old painting, to coincide with the new section?
It became a jumping off place into the unknown. Sometimes the result caused me to ruin some good paintings, but other times the plunge resulted in a much more moving piece. When my paintings take a direction of their own that I haven’t planned, it involves the risk of letting the canvas take its own course. Yet the lesson it has taught me is to get out of the way. And many times the painting itself becomes a prayer of thanksgiving and gratitude.
It is my hope that a bit of gratitude and hope will be found in the pieces that you choose to add to your life!
God Bless, Susie Scrivner a.k.a. SZQ
