My daughter asked me to paint for her, a recreation of an album cover.
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“Because I suck at painting. You’re excellent.” (at least she knows how to suck up!)
However, this statement is woefully inaccurate.
I’ve never seen her start and finish a serious or even semi-serious piece of art to know if she ‘sucks’ at it.
She’s creative like me, with plenty of ideas, yet the little direction of how to use her creativity, also, like me. I’ve spent most of my art time tracing and copying… trying to improve with mild success and little consistency.
Lately, though, I’ve found it easier to direct my hands to start and finish some of the projects in my head.
Medication, newfound self-confidence, and a realization, that life’s too short to deal with shit that doesn’t make me happy.
Also, I’ve thrown out everyone’s possessions Kondo-style and have so little ‘stuff’ to deal with that I have time to indulge… though trust me, a bitch can still procrastinate over vacuuming the floor for longer than I care to document here.
So I asked to see this album cover. Flower Boy By Tyler the Creator. With a glorious sunset depicted by artist Eric White.
Wowsers. Straight up, it looks simple enough. Then, when you look at it for longer than 30 seconds and with your eyes un-squinted… there’s a fair whack of detail in that bad boy.
“I don’t want the guy standing in it though. Or the car.”
Ok… a moderate whack of detail.
Any decent artist will look at that cover and say… “simples bro”. Sky, some hills, some clouds, some flowers, some bees. What’s the problem?
Ummmm my hills won’t look like hills. My sunflowers will have more sun and fewer flowers. The sky will look great, extra dramatic. Surely she’ll be down with me sticking cotton wool where the clouds should be.
And, have you heard of a brand new concept I like to call… Stick figure insects? Didn’t think so.
She’s been in a funk. Isolation kicked her arse in a way I could not have predicted.
Of course, the thirteen-year-old girl in our home has the most prominent social life of us all. Just because it seems like she sits in her room bemoaning her life endlessly… I forgot she’s never home on weekends off with this friend or that.
So, while I was living my best life at the beginning (government-mandated to stay at home? Sure thing, a dream come true.), my kids were struggling, my husband was struggling. I lost my job, and now we’re all at home… struggling.
Painting or drawing would be good for my writing; being creative breeds more creativity after all. So, of course, I’d made the sweeping declaration I was going to be more artistic and was looking for a challenge.
My daughter, on the other hand, had made the sweeping declaration that her life was shit and she had nothing to live for (she’s seeing a psychologist, I’m not trying to handle this on my own.)
Of course, I said, “sure babe… looks totes simples” and, after receiving a brief lecture on trying to speak cool, I started to plan.
I had a new visual art diary, a sweet pair of arty looking overalls, and I love paint fumes… What could go wrong?
Well for starters, a few weeks earlier, my manager was throwing away a cardboard tv box that I salvaged to cut up for disposable canvases.
Perfect size as is.
A 75-inch TV means a 75-inch piece of cardboard.
Oh well, if you’re going to fuck up some acrylic painting, may as well make it visible from space.
Not only will it be massive, but I’ll also use it as a chance to learn some art skills. Take the whole process seriously.
Am I mixing colors from scratch? Yes, please. Cue trip to the art shop, my super-duper favorite place.
Eight thousand seven hundred sixty-two shades of yellow and red? Huh.
Step back, research.
Google.
‘How to paint.’
‘How to paint with acrylics’
‘How to turn a piece of cardboard into a work of art fit for the Louvre’
‘Yes, seriously.’
‘What colors do I buy to start painting.’
‘The best way to mix purples and oranges’
‘And greens. Imma need some greens’
‘Are you serious there are that many types of paintbrushes?’
‘How to adopt children out once they have already turned into arsehole teenagers and hate me, their life and peas.’
Deep breaths. I loved art at school. I was decent when I put my mind to it.
I’ve got this. Start from the beginning, build-up your pallet, take your time, learn skills only as you need them… this pandemic could drag on for months.
Set up studio in the garage, cue creative sounding music, brew coffee, find a basic website telling kids how to finger-paint and go!
Straight up, I bought some primary colors, came home, and thought it would be best to start with a color wheel.
Are you kidding me?! Preschoolers know red and blue make purple… that’s brown mate.
‘My purple looks brown.’
Back to the art shop.
Spent hours playing with my new paints, making endless greens, oranges, and browns (sometimes, on purpose).
Pure unadulterated fun.
Sure, I was procrastinating a bit… you know what they say about staring at a blank page. Anyway, it was educational procrastination.
Painting the sky felt good. Freeing. A great start at any rate.
Art is a therapy for me; it opens my mind and clears my brain. So I hooked in and nailed it.
That was easy. Imma finish this by, like… Tuesday.
Hmm, these hills are all, hilly. How do I make my hills look hilly?
‘How to make hills look hilly.’
Three days and a whole Bob Ross binge session later, I start slapping greens around like there’s no mañana.
After a week and one pretty cool time-lapse… I have hilly hills!!!!
Like… someone could walk into my garage, look at my ‘canvas’ and straight-up go… ‘sweet hills.’
I’m proud of myself, and loudly, un-apologetically sharing my success with my family.
Thank the gods, it’s over. Hills are the hardest thing I’ve come up against, smooth sailing from here.
Sunflowers. My favorite flowers.
Perspective? Ratios? Do petals even look like that?
Two weeks, many tears of frustration, later… Holy moly, I did it!! I Am a garage art genius. Will host an exhibition in the lounge room. Hand draws my fliers.
Thank the gods, it’s over. Sunflowers are the hardest thing I’ve come up against, smooth sailing from here.
As I type this draft, n my peripheral vision, I can see my first round of ‘clouds’.
‘Surely to christ it's easy to paint fucking clouds.’
Did you mean: surely to christ it’s easy to paint fucking clouds
FUCK. GOOGLE.
Fuck, Tyler, the Creator.
What kind of dumbarse name is that anyway?
The canvas had been staring at me with its glorious sunflowers for a week. Judging my hesitation. Marveling at the lengths, I’ll go to, avoiding tackling those clouds.
Finally, I sauntered into the garage with a tube of white and thought I’d knock those bad boys over because those bees were undoubtedly the hardest thing I would come up against.
Well, now I’m looking forward to starting the bees because my clouds look high.
Not — look at that cloud high up in the sky, high… Whoa man this brownie is delicious, is it sugar-free? It’s making me feel peckish, high.
So basically, you get it.
Life is like painting a work of art with no previous skills, products, and tools that barely fit the bill and little knowledge of basic concepts.
You have to practice, make mistakes, cover those mistakes up (preferably before anyone sees them), apologize to everyone for swearing at them, and google everything from how to boil an egg to how to get the chocolate sauce off your nanna’s heirloom patchwork quilt before she finds it.
There will be times you nail it, get excited because you almost nailed it or because it kicked your butt then you finally nailed it.
You’ll have times of pure happiness and joy. You’ll also fuck up. Fail. Underachieve.
Either way, you can’t stop. People depend on you: your boss, your mum, the cat, your teenage daughter.
You. You depend on you.
You’ll buy the right red eventually, and your purples will improve.
You just have to make a few browns first.
