Watercolor Life Lessons - Episode 17 Transcript

I’m going to confess something (I mean, eventually I will confess a lot of things because sometimes when it’s just me and this microphone here in this room I will lose my mind and enter the confessional!). OK, back to today’s confession. I love instant gratification! I always have. If there is a way for me to see results or gain something instantly, I will try to find it. I will admit to you right now, I know full well that I am missing part of the magic and the journey when that instant result comes – but it has been my default for as long as I can remember.

Here is confession #2 for the day…I’m a control freak. Oh, confession #3…I don’t like change.

Wow – you got a 3-fer on this episode!

So, when you add all 3 of those fantastic, totally not filled with pride, traits together what you get is the opportunity for a TON of life lessons. I mean, let’s be honest, with just those 3 things I provide God with ample material to teach me every single day. And that doesn’t include the myriad of other things I won’t yet confess to you!

Now, if you know me at all, there may be a part of you that is now scratching your head and thinking, “but how does that work will all of the artsy-fartsy stuff she does?” Let me tell you…none of the artistic mediums I am drawn to lend themselves at all to instant gratification, control, or stability. As a matter of fact, all of my artistic endeavors lend themselves to God’s tool bag of life lessons! The irony is not at all lost on me!

For the sake of this post, I’m going to be reflecting on the artistic medium I am most drawn to, both to gaze upon and to practice. Watercolor painting.

I was trying to remember when I started watercolor. I supposed it started with a similar medium, albeit very unique in its properties, over 15 years ago with alcohol ink. However, with actual watercolors I picked up a brush about 6 years ago. I stumbled across an artist that I began to follow on Facebook, Melanie April, and she was offering a class on watercolor galaxies. I was sold. I signed up, paid my fifteen dollars, ordered my supplies and paints on Amazon and I was ready.

The day everything arrived I set up my dining room table, laid out my watercolor paper, filled my mason jar with water and sat down with my tablet and the class videos queued up. In less than an hour I was going to have a beautiful galactic masterpiece ready to frame and wow my husband with. I would soon be painting works of art by request of friends and family and my artistic heart would once again be filled up with a new skill.

Que the tears and the toddler-like temper tantrum.

What the heck was this jewel-toned nightmare that I just stepped into and how do I get out? No, no…I don’t want out – I will master this medium if it is the last thing I do! And I ripped off the muddy piece of paper from my pad and started again! “You won’t get the best of me,” I muttered as I dipped my brush into the replenished clean water and started again. Clean page and after clean page and too many swear words to count, and I pushed back from the table in tears and frustrated.

There would be no masterpiece tonight. No instant gratification. No control. And the soggy pieces of watercolor paper strew across the table were testament that nothing with this medium was stable and change happened with every brushstroke!

See, those of you who think I am always creative – not all of it comes easy to me. I would venture to say every creative has battled with some part of their process and chosen outlets. I can offer many of the same frustrations with weaving and with photography (both of which hold the 2nd and 3rd spots on my list of favorite creative processes).

Alright, so clearly, I stuck with watercolor. And through that I have learned not only much about the medium and how to grow in my mastery of it, but God has also taught me many, many life lessons through the process of learning to watercolor. Here are just a few that I wanted to share with you.

Lesson #1 - Let It Go!

Now, you can start singing the Frozen song because it would be appropriate! However, I mean let go of control. One of my favorite ways to watercolor is wet on wet. This is where you wet the paper and then you place your wet paint on that wet paper. Have you ever tried to control water from running al over a table or cabinet – or when a child spills a drink at the table and the liquid runs almost faster than you can wipe it up? Well, that can be what happens as you are learning to paint. When wet hits wet, you never know exactly what’s going to happen. It might spread just the way you were imagining. Or it might not spread at all. Or it might mix with the wrong color and make brown in a place you didn’t want brown. Or it might spread much, much farther than you expected. Even watercolor experts don’t know exactly what will happen. Remember that little confession of instant gratification? Well, patience, or lack thereof, goes hand in hand with that. To really master this technique, a little patience is required. And then the results shine. You watch as you place your color laden brush down on the place you have laid water down and the beauty of the paint ‘exploding’ is mesmerizing. But in order to get to this place, you have to be willing to let go of control. That water and that paint is going to go where it wants. Trying to control it will only bring frustration and you will miss the beauty in the process as you watch the pigment settle and come to its full character when it dries.

Lesson #2 – Hold Life Loosely

When you paint with watercolor paint (and really with acrylics as well) you learn that a tight grip on your brush does not bode well for a good flow in your method. When we hold a brush tight our strokes have hard edges and are very defined. That usually is not the look you want. Watercolor lends itself to a soft, flowy look. You sense movement when you look at watercolor paintings. When you hold your brush tightly, your hands get cramps, your arm muscles get tired and the need to step away arrives out of exhaustion instead of our simply needing to wait for something to dry. I have learned the same principle in life. Hold it loosely. All of it. We are promised nothing but the moment we are living in right this second. This can go hand in hand with control. When we hold life tightly, usually based around our fears, we end up trying to control things we have no business controlling – and buying into the illusion that we could control it anyway. We can hold too tightly and overwork (RE: overthink) too many things that aren’t ours to hold or worry about – which can lead to driving our family, friends and co-workers nuts. And we will exhaust ourselves trying to micromanage fears instead of opening our hands up and saying, “God, I trust you to take this. I trust that you have my best interest in your plan.” What results is a life filled with beautiful movement – a masterpiece that magnifies THE Artist.

Lesson #3 – Sleep On It

With watercolor, the pigment in the paint gets absorbed, right along with the water, as it dries, leaving the colors more muted than they appeared to be while wet. In other words, once the painting has dried and settled, it will look lighter in color. The colors will also continue to blend as it dries. This doesn’t mean you can’t bring more color and vibrancy into the painting, but you need to see it in different light before you do that. When you look with fresh eyes in the morning, the painting you thought was a muted mess might surprise you! It’s like finding something new on the paper. This happens in life as well. We get ourselves worked up over something, only to see it differently and with a more understanding when we see it in the light of a new day. For example, you realize that what was said, was said out of fear by the other person, and not with the intent to be hurtful. It was about them, not you, at all (or vice versa and you know that you need to make amends). The point is - don’t be too quick to jump to conclusions! See how it looks, with fresh eyes, in the morning light. Indeed, just like His mercies are new every morning, so we should seek to walk in the same way. 

Lesson #4 – Progress Is Visible With Perspective

The thing about watercolor is, you cannot see the progress but through the lens of perspective as each stage is completed. You might need to wait until it dries to layer colors. You might need to let the paint flow where it will and work within the places it settles. Sometimes the painting looks amazing close up, and horrible from a few feet back…or the opposite. Perspective brings an important view. We may think we haven’t improved at all, in whatever it is we are doing, but if we turn around and look back at where we started, we can very clearly see the improvement. The same in life…God will allow us to view what He has brought us through…but we have to get through it first before we can view it from a different vantage point – and new perspective.

So, there you have it. A few life lessons through my process of learning to paint with watercolor. It truly is the artistic medium, next to weaving, that brings me to a place of amazing peace and calm…Now. I could not say that 6 years ago. However, I have learned so much, and I yet have so much more to learn. I love when I have an entire afternoon to do nothing but paint (that hasn’t happened for a long time)…I truly feel like those are some very special times for my heart and my soul to connect with God. I pray that you have an outlet that brings this same sense of peace and connection to you. We all need that – especially in this culture that craves all of the things at warp speed (you know, like those confessions of an instant gratification junkie who is also a change-hating control freak!)

Until next time – go out and find a creative way to make someone smile!