Mindfulness and Motivation through Watercolor Painting

While in quarantine, focusing on self-improvement and finding motivation for anything at all can be difficult. While trying to get into the holiday spirit, my mom suggested painting Christmas cards with watercolor. We followed several YouTube tutorials to create a handful of cards. As someone who is not artistically talented, I feel proud of the end result of each of my paintings.

At first, painting can be intimidating when an image is not outlined on the page — waiting to be completed - like in a coloring book. However, once I started following the instructions of each artist’s YouTube video, I was able to elicit success. To get into the holiday spirit, I listened to Christmas music while painting Christmas themed designs.

While painting, I also found myself being incredibly relaxed and able to turn off my mind from what is going on in the world. While self-improvement in my painting was my initial goal, I have also improved my mental health during quarantine. Now, achieving a peaceful state of mind is an additional goal I am motivated to achieve, especially when watercolor painting.

As you can see, I was able to create some nice paintings, which was initially surprising to me. I had little faith in my ability to create a painting that could even resemble a reindeer, holly, or a Christmas tree. As we move into 2021, I want to start painting landscapes, which is a big feat but given my stepping stone of cards, I’m pretty confident. I encourage anyone reading this article to dedicate an hour of his or her day to learning a new craft to escape the chaos of the world and to create a goal — even if that goal is none other than being in the moment for that time.