Life in Color: Painting Vibrantly

I appreciate all types of art, and have dabbled in many of them. Whether it's visual art, music, dancing, drama, or any other sort of artistic expression, I'm all about it. I think that art is a crucial part of humanity. For me, personally, I find myself, most often, finding such expression

through painting. These paintings are often quite colorful, and I have regularly been asked the question of why they are so, and where I find the inspiration for the pallets that I use. For the longest time, I couldn't really say, and I'm still not 100% certain that I can, but I'm going to do

my best.

To start, I think that part of the core foundation of what it means to be an artist is to see something in the world differently, and then to share that with people. This can be in really small or really big ways, and I believe that most people have a creative side to them, whether they are aware of it or not.

For me, a big part of life has always been balance. From a young age, without really realizing it, I saw experiences, big and small, in a bit of a unique way. Now, part of this had something to do with the fact that I believed in fairies and that I had the power to turn into a leopard at will, but that's not actually what I'm referring to.

I've always related and connected certain experiences/situations/events to each other in ways that don't always make that much sense, even to myself. The best way I can explain it is with color. To me, two different scenes, such as going to an amusement park with friends and painting alone at home, may have something in common, even though they are vastly different from each other. I can't even explain what it is, which is why I use color as an explanation. Say they are both pink in my mind. They both bring me a certain feeling that is the same. Not wholly and completely, but to a degree. Now, I don't just want my whole life to be pink, as that would be out of balance, so I strive to include some blue experiences as well; reading or walking my dog on the beach. Ideally, I want a variety of all colors, coming together. I see music in a similar way.

At one point in my life, I actually got quite carried away with this concept, attempting to achieve constant happiness through a perfect life of complete balance, constantly. That is impossible and rather silly. Eventually, I learned to find real joy within a loving relationship with the Lord; one that has very little to do with whatever situation I am in. Still, though, this is how I continue to see life, and I do enjoy finding such balance.

Some of the first paintings that I did were of large, colorful, wild animals. The scale and the drama that came with this imagery had a very freeing sense to them, for me. Very loosely following artistic color protocol, I felt as though I were sculpting images out of color, verses filling in a shape with them. Here, I could find that beautiful balance, depicting what I see as a very simple and raw expression of life, through these animals. It was very therapeutic for me.

I still paint the colorful animals, but I have also moved on to other things, and while they may not always be quite as diverse, colorfully, as the animals, the color is still always a major key factor to what I am getting across. They are often more focused now. I think of both the literal image, in my head, and the feeling that comes with it, and I emphasize the colors that I associate with both.

I love light, and I love the fact that I can depict it with colors, so I like to paint things that are glowing or illuminated somehow. I love painting any sort of organic shapes, and I try to find the root of things and bring that to the surface with my art.

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#art #painting