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I took a friend on a tour of my studio yesterday. At one point, she asked me how I knew what I wanted to paint. I put my hand in the middle of my chest and told her, 'I feel it right here.' She looked a little surprised, so I thought I'd expand on that a bit.

When I first started seriously leaning into creating art daily, I flailed. OH< I FLAILED -- wildly.

You see, I didn't know what type of artist I was yet. I just knew that I had always loved to create with color and make something 2D look amazing. Most of my experience up to that point had been my pencil drawings over the years and my landscape designs which had an artistic hand-drafted style to them. 

My materials had been mostly pencil and markers. Oh, I had dabbled in acrylic paints, but had never been able to make them work. 

I started creating - little doodle-type things. I wondered if perhaps I would become some sort of pattern artist or abstract artist. I just went with it - whatever I felt like making. That was okay for a short while, but I quickly became frustrated. My anxiety caused me to feel like I needed to find my 'style' (whatever that means, lol). I kept creating, but I remember feeling like the struggle was huge at this point.

I started painting in acrylics and even tried pour painting for awhile. Thing was with that pour painting felt mostly like chance and not skill. Cool! - yes, but not something that I wanted to continue. 

It took awhile and it was REALLY hard, but one day I found myself trying oil paints. Oh, it was NOT magical. It SUCKED! I had tried painting a chickadee and my first attempt I botched it so badly that I swore I was done. DONE, I SAY! *UGH*

I was, however, NOT done. lol - I tried it again. It was a little intimidating because I was SO bad at it. I started trying to find out how other people painted with oils. It was hellish because there are a LOT of different methods -- which my engineering brain didn't understand. Yes, fat over lean and basic rules, there are, but there's a lot of other parts that we get to figure out for ourselves. 

Along the way, I started to really enjoy myself. I had a few successful paintings early on and thought - wow! okay. That didn't take 20 years to learn that. And playing with colors was fun. 

I realized that to find my path, I needed to consistently pay attention to my own reactions to things. If I painted a certain way and there was immediately a thrilling feeling in my chest - do more of that! If, however, I painted something and was just kinda 'meh' - I didn't do that again. 

I began painting realistic paintings in oils. I loved the technical challenge. Oils also have just beautiful colors whereas I'd always struggled with acrylics because their colors change when it dries.

Later on, when I gained some confidence I was able to loosen up my paint strokes. In fact, it happened that I would make a 'mistake'. That feeling in my chest would leap like a spring rabbit and then my analytical brain would 'fix' it. Then the child within would scream, 'NOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!' This happened enough times that I finally was able to arm wrestle my analytical brain and win. Don't fix the fun stuff! 

I still experiment in my studio. I collect pictures of art that give me that thrill. Sometimes I save paintings that have lovely colors or fun styles, so I can consider using something similar. This is all how I pay attention to what is exciting for me. I figure if enough of the same element show up often enough, I'll try it and see if I still get that thrill. 

Still evolving. Still chasing.