Life In Water Color
Art in any form intrigues me. An “artist” I’m not, so to see someone put beautiful images on paper which capture the essence of expression, the beauty of nature or anything like that, is amazing!
There are a lot of reasons artists choose the medium they use, but recently an artist I know said, “I love using water colors! It gives me the ability to express emotion and change lines and background without looking like a photograph!” His ability with oil painting is phenomenal, and often does look like a photograph when completed. It never occurred to me an artist would want less than a “perfect” piece! But I guess it depends on the definition of perfection!
Life is a little like that! We work really hard to make the right choices, choose the right friends, attend the nicest school, have the best job or career, wear the ideal clothes and on and on! We often want to present the “very best” of who we are, or at least ‘who’ we want others to see!
When we do this, sometimes we layer and layer our efforts of “perfection,” and we become “heavy and opaque,” so no real light can come through. We hide who we are and become flat, without any genuine quality, rather than letting our true light or true selves shine through.
Like painting in water colors, a very important aspect of getting the “picture right,” is to have confidence in how the medium is approached. When the attitude is weak and indecisive, the result is vulnerability. Again the same can be said of life. When we move through life unsure of ourselves, or decisions, who we are, what we want to do, or where we are going, the end result is uncertainty, and can often lead us down a path we never intended. We end up being a follower instead of a leader. We choose to allow others to make our decisions for us, even if we know the choice is a bad one, rather than taking a stand.
We have the capability of living our lives with energy and boldness, vitality and purpose, strength and power in harmony with the world around us. Or we can choose to layer the depth of who we are through a façade of all these qualities and miss the joy of who we were created to be.
Sometimes it takes great courage to be confident enough to step out of our comfort zone and away from the expectations of others. We become entrapped in what we believe people want from us and who people think we are. After careful consideration, advice from knowledgeable people around us, taking the first step into some other “realm” of being, is exhilarating!
When we allow who we really are shine through, --and when we approve and like it—others will see the change we’ve made as positive, even if they didn’t immediately think it wise, because they just couldn’t see us any different than they always had!
I challenge you to take a good look at yourself, your circumstances, personality, desires, capabilities and if you are ready to improve who you are, move into a different direction, make a career change, by starting college to advance your career, take classes to revitalize an “art interest” or otherwise grow, then consider it. After careful research (if necessary), step out! Become the successful (and genuine?) person you were created to be!
Photo credit: https://pixabay.com/illustrations/feathers-bird-animal-art-abstract-2561511/