This is the first bird I have attempted. This little chickadee is day nine in the Acrylic April 2022 challenge, but it was the fourth painting I finished for the month. April just really kicked my plans aside. Oh well, I will enjoy painting flowers all the rest of the year. lol

Sometimes I get a craving for certain colors, just like some people do for certain foods. Makes sense I guess, since I do have aphasia where I actually taste colors during a migraine headache. My senses of taste and sight must be closely connected even when I am not experiencing aphasia. Anyway, today I was craving metallic gold.

I made this painting up as I went along. I like the way it came out. If I did it again, I would plan the metal scroll work better. But overall I like it a lot.

This was part of the AA2022 challenge. My goal is to paint every day. Some days I will paint the tutorial offered by Cinnamon, but some days I just have something in my head I want to paint. Today was one of the latter.

The word prompt was Night Bloom. I thought about how beautiful the hair combs are in the Chinese and Korean historical dramas are. I also thought of the image of a woman taking the combs out at night, her long black hair falling down, like the petals of a flower blooming. It seemed like a really symbolic image of the night, and all the romance of it, blooming.

Well, this painting helped me get a little looser. I have to admit that what helped was I got to a point I just no longer cared about how the painting looked anymore. I just wanted to get it done and say I did it, move on. And so I stopped thinking about how to do it, just moved forward. I guess I got out of my own way.

It isn't the best painting I ever did, for sure. Close to one of the worst. But I like it. I learned from it about how to make shade by desaturating colors with their compliment color, and how to create warmth and light to fall in one area. Cool things to learn.

This is my first painting for the Acrylic April 2022. Lavender Butterflies. It was so hard for me, I had to start all over 4 times. I was so frustrated the stress made my blood sugar go high. Wow! Talk about pushed out of the comfort zone.

It really scares me, cause usually the challenge for AA starts with easy paintings and gets more difficult over the month. If this is the low part of the curve, I'm not only going to be out of my comfort zone, I might be out of my comfort galaxy. lol But they say we learn the most outside of the comfort zone, so yay!

Yay for painting loosely. I hope I learn that skill.

I want a series of paintings of sea turtles to put in my bathroom. This is the first one. I used a black and white picture from Pinterest to create it.

On Feb 20, 2022, my niece got married. This painting is my symbolic dream for them, and my wedding present.

Everything in the painting is symbolic. Starting with the books. Her groom is incredibly romantic. He proposed to her in a very special way, honoring something about her that he really loves- her love of books. From toddler-hood she has loved books more than toys, treats, or almost anything in the world. So knowing this, he set things up in a book store. He had hollowed out a place for the ring in a copy of her favorite childhood book. On the blank page in front he wrote his proposal asking her to marry him. In the store he pretended to knock the book off the shelf and then knelt on one knee in front of her to pick it up. "What's this? Look! Someone wrote in this book," he said. She looked in the book and was shocked, surprised, amazed, and overjoyed. Obviously she said yes.

So books are in this painting for their start on their journey to adventure and their own happy ever after. I borrowed the idea of the books being a stair case from The Art Sherpa's fantasy painting tutorial. Loved it. And the book theme also shows up in the back ground as a giant book opened up to create bridges over the waterfalls.

Other symbols include:

There is a ladybug in the foreground that ties to my niece's nickname since infancy.

I tried to paint Indian Paintbrush flowers at the beginning of the stairs (those spiky red, yellow flowers at bottom right corner), Indian Paintbrush symbolizes embracing our own special qualities to calmly and comfortably forge a new path in life. If you think they look more like tulips, well that's ok, because tulips symbolize perfect deep love. Either flower is equally great for starting off.

There are pink, red, orange, and yellow roses in the painting. Pink symbolizes gentleness, happiness, gratefulness, and joy. Red symbolizes romance, love, beauty, and courage. Orange is for life, energy, passion, and excitement. Yellow roses are friendship, joy, and new beginnings.

Wisteria symbolizes long or eternal life, which I believe is a promise from Jehovah that we can look forward to, and I want everyone I love to be in paradise forever. Beneath the wisteria on the right of the stairs, there are little pink and white flowers that are dogwood flowers. They represent purity, strength, and affection.

Japanese Maple, the big red tree, that symbolizes peace and serenity.

I thought weeping willows would have a sad symbolism, but was surprised by how deep and positive the meaning really is. It symbolizes the balance, harmony, and growth through storms and life's changes. It represents hope, a sense of belonging, and safety; the ability to let go of pain and suffering to grow new, strong, and bold.

In the far, far distance, there are pink flowers all over the hills. Those are pink azaleas. They mean familial duty, remembrance of family, and the desire to always return home.

Cattails mean an end to all conflict, peace.

Waterfalls symbolize a constant change in life but forever present. Waterfalls are powerful, always flowing, unstoppable. Life is like that. It is constantly changing, on every level. We can't fight it and keep things exactly the same. But we can be energized by the flow. And we can have some things in our life that flow with us, becoming a permanent part of the waterfall. Let that be each other.

I also added details to the dress that would help my niece remember her special day every time she looks at it, because it looks just like her dress.

This is the most personal painting I have ever done up to this date, and I am so happy to give it to her. Painting helps me express things so much better than words can.

I get weird neurological events when I have a migraine headache. Like most people with migraines I see spots sometimes, lights, auras, bolts of lightening, pixelations; I have sensitivity to light and sound; heightened sensations of touch and smell; sometimes tunnel vision, sometimes lost vision; nausea and pain of course. But I sometimes get weird things where the brain forgets which sensory organ goes with which stimulation. I look at a color and get a flavor in my mouth. Sometimes I get the strongest urge to taste my paint, because I just KNOW what that color tastes like and it is so delicious! I resist, but the struggle is real.

When I start tasting the flavors of colors I am looking at, I HAVE to paint. I have to interact with that color. It overwhelms me with the need to connect, consume, whatever, with that color. And usually, since my head is in so much pain I can't put thoughts together so well, the paintings don't usually turn out so good, and I just chalk them up to scribbling with paint and learning about colors, values, contrasts, etc, much later when I can look at them with some reasonable intelligence.

Last night was an exception. I started tasting gold, metallic red, violet, pearl white, black.... And a specific memory came to mind.

There was a pond that was a decent hike into the woods where I grew up. It wasn't huge, but if all the snow was cleared off, it was enough space to skate around on. My younger sister and I loved to get other kids together to go with us to clear the snow off the ice. Mom would make a big thermos of hot chocolate, and sometimes a second thermos of hot Tang. She would follow us kids, and we all carried shovels. We were so bundled up in layers of padded winter clothing that our bodies could hardly bend at the waist. We would have to wade through deep snow, there was no trail, and only my sister and I knew how to find our way to the remote pond.

The whole day would be spent shoveling, slipping and sliding on the ice, chasing air bubbles that were trapped under the surface of the ice, skating, and enjoying general silliness. There were plenty of giggles and shenanigans, That cold pond holds so many warm memories. Memories of colors and smells and tastes and sounds. They all came pouring in on me last night while my brain insisted on tasting those colors. Gold light behind the trees tastes like orange Tang, hot orange Tang. Red and violet and pearl tastes sweet and melted and swirled together like a creamy chocolate with milk and marshmallows. Black tastes like cold icicles, melted snow. When I was done, I could see our pond.

There's nothing really technically good about the painting. I just liked it because it was the pond. I posted it on my facebook and instagram pages just to share part of my creativity, no explanation about the memory I attached to the painting. I share the good, the bad, the ugly without worry these days. It is all a part of me, and I like me. I thought I would get a few "likes" from family as a gesture of familial love. What I got was the most beautiful compliment I have ever received. The most beautiful love.

My Sis: Do you remember the pond in the woods near the old house? The one we cleared off sometimes to ice skate on? I have pictures somewhere of me and my friend XXXX on it. Well this painting took me there in a way that took my breath away. I can see it, feel it, smell it, and yes even taste it. So many memories came flooding back when I haven't even thought of that little spot in the woods in... I don't even know how long. I love this painting so much.

Me: Yes, that was the pond I was trying to get on canvas....

My Sis: You captured it. Somehow in the whole feel and taste of it. You took me back again the second I saw it. The feel and taste of the sky and how it is reflecting, is a feel I don't think anyone else could have done without being there because it made me FEEL those times. And I didn't even know that you were trying to paint it and yet I was taken there. That's an immeasurable talent sissy. You caught MORE than a picture. Sorry I am repeating myself. Feeling a little overwhelmed by some forgotten yet treasured memories.

...
There is so much healing in this memory of this place for me. My sister and I deeply love each other. Our childhood was not very full of beautiful or happy moments, let alone moments we got to share and have the same experience. It is hard for me to think of ANY other place in our childhood that was like the pond, because ONLY happy memories happened there, for both of us.

I am so excited to be able to paint again. I first fell in love with painting a couple years ago. But I stopped painting at one point. I still loved it, but I was totally stuck. At first it was two paintings that stopped me- one a portrait of my nephew and his horse, the other a simple picture of a woman in a hat with dramatic lighting. Every time I started to work on one of them, I was totally intimidated by thoughts of "What if this isn't good enough? What if it looks like a kindergarten finger painting version of people?" I mean that inner voice of mine got so mean and vicious that it chased me away from the canvas over and over. I got so I couldn't paint ANYTHING. Then I had an accident that tore the rotatory cuff of my shoulder. I could hardly use my hand, let alone paint. I was in agony. And part of me loved having an excuse to use for why I had stopped painting. I couldn't paint. More than a year after I had stopped painting, I was no longer in as much pain. My physical therapist was helping me see how I was progressing by asking me what activities had I been able to start doing again. In the conversation I mentioned I was looking forward to painting again. Woops! That was a slip. Part of me was looking forward to painting, but a part of me was still holding onto the excuse that I could not paint because of my shoulder. My very empathic therapist caught that. With kind encouragement, along with all the hard work and physical training, she got my shoulder back to a point I could paint. And then she took away my excuses. I was so nervous to start painting again. I really looked into myself and chiseled away at the ego to remind myself why I paint- for joy. I dug in to find why I was so afraid of failure. I adopted the mantra, "It is just paint." That reminded me that there was no danger in failing at a painting, and I could always paint over it and start again, so there really was no failure. I now tell myself, "It is impossible to fail. It is just paint. You can paint over it and start again, and again, and again. So it isn't a finished painting until it is successful. Until then, it is just a work in progress. You can't fail." I am back to painting. Each piece may take me a long time, but I learn with each painting and I am feeling more and more confidence. I'm becoming more serious about learning the skills to become a better painter and I'm learning to be less critical of myself. My number one rule for myself and my paintings, "Never compare yourself to others. There will always be someone way better than you. Only compare yourself with yourself so you can see your growth."
I'm using my Little Monster that I created from just a spontaneous scribble to represent my art journey and how I want to move forward with painting. It is all for fun, just play, and it's just paint. OK, happy journey, Kat, you can do this.