Different Hats

Last year I entered a painting for a contest at the fairgrounds. It was the first time that I gathered up enough courage to submit a piece of my work that would be displayed with other fantastic artists from our county.

This was not only exciting, but also a little bit terrifying. Friends and family have seen the things that I can create, but not so much random strangers. One time I had an Instagram account where I would post pictures of my stuff, but I lost interest and focused on other things instead.

I am not a professional artist, and I am my own worst critic. 90% of the time I’m never happy with what I make and I feel other people might not like it either. I’m learning to transition those negative thoughts into positive, to stop being so hard on myself, and to forget about other people because it doesn’t matter what they think – just me.

I’ve been a painter for about 6 years now, ever since I went through postpartum depression. It was a coping mechanism; a way for me to relieve stress and trauma by using paint. Sometimes it was a way for me to communicate with doctors – if I couldn’t explain it in words, I would paint them a picture instead.

My house is filled with all of my different creations, I must have over 100 canvases with some kind of painting on it – unfinished or complete. I like to dabble in other stuff like clay sculpting and painting furniture or objects.

But for this specific contest there is a size limit for the canvas, and it has to be framed. Instead of going through my collection and settling for what I have, I’ve been pushing myself to make new paintings. It’s not an easy task, most of the time I have a creative block or my imagination goes blank.

I went through my bin of all unfinished paintings and I picked something from there. I have frames that I collect from dumpster diving and I found the perfect one that fit the canvas just right. The painting was of a bench in the park, surrounded with trees and grass – something basic I did but never progressed on.

The scenery gave me an idea for the new painting – a Japanese-style landscape with notable features.

The first thing I had to do was cover the entire picture with white paint. From there, I drew an outline of the background scene and then laid down the paints.

After making some hills with grass, a sunset sky, and a plain mountain, I drew a cherry blossom tree and a small torii gate. I spend a lot of time with the tree – blending, blotting, and dotting to bring out the details. Then I made a cobblestone pattern leading to the torii gate and a pagoda temple with a lake.

A good portion of this painting was done from my bed. I don’t have a specific place to paint.

I went crazy with detailing from this point on. Blades of grass poking up, lanterns hanging from posts, and a red-crowned crane because it’s beautiful.

A few more finishing touches like adding some leaves to the tree, adding color to the lanterns, and a blood orange moon put me at an end. That was enough of bringing it to life, it was time to coat it and frame it.

The frame is from a Michaels dumpster and it came in handy as it fits the canvas perfect.

And that was it. It was ready to be entered and I was ready to see what would happen. It’s a small-sized painting, nothing extravagant or amazing really. Very simple.

The whole process was easy: go to the fairgrounds, pay a small fee, give them the painting, wait for the awards.

We went back and I went searching on the white walls that held our artwork. I was admiring all the hard work people had put into their art and then I saw it.

My painting.

On the wall.

With a green ribbon.

A ribbon that had the printed words “Honorable Mention” on it was dangling on the side of my golden frame.

I can’t even begin to describe how I felt to see a ribbon. I went in expecting absolutely nothing and walked out with such a big smile on my face. I even left the fairgrounds with some new frames that were leftover from the show.

I’m so proud of myself for giving it a shot and not missing out on this opportunity.

And now I have a new hobby – entering painting contests.

Maybe one day I will get the chance to sell some of my paintings.