practice like a hobbyist

The idealist in me often thinks I need to have the perfect subject for an artpiece before I begin.

Practice and study sessions erase the stress of all that, and as a result, things actually get done.

As I teach, I paint at the same time.

I paint what they paint--things I would normally have never chosen to paint.

Some smelly salted fish I picked up from the provision store as a class painting subject.

I like the effect on wood, but alas, these days it can be more expensive buying wooden boards than primed canvases.

I like the slowness of pen drawing. But pen drawing can be so unforgiving, like Chinese brush painting, or a performance. It has to be perfect once through. Maybe pen drawing has taught me to be overly cautious with creation, hesitating too long before setting pen to paper, getting cold feet before committing. Drawing over a pencil sketch is never the same; the pen must carve its own line, and if it's forced to follow a pencil line, it simply won't.

Acrylic and oil painting forgives. You can paint over and over, and the more layers of correction, the better. You can paint red hair by instinct, and cover it up with sky. You can tweak an expression, a light source, a posture. It never has to end, and they never have to know how awkward its growing stages were.

It's therapy for me. Therapy for the cautious perfectionist, allowance to play and make mistakes.

Allowance to choose mundane objects and not have to conjure meaning and morals out of a picture.

Allowance to focus on things as basic and miraculous as colour.

The liberation of painting like a hobbyist is infinitely healing.