Painting with Love

“When you meet someone

leave them with more love inside

than they started with.”

RH

A couple of years ago, I painted a row of wine bottles on a 16”x20” canvas, and honestly, it wasn’t very good.  So I hid it in the back of the closet never to see the light of day.  Let me tell you, that’s not the only bad painting I have created over the years.  In fact I had a whole stack that I decided to take to the dump.  I was getting ready to throw them into the compactor when a man stopped me. He loaded every single one of them into the back of his truck.  I don’t know what became of those paintings, but it’s true that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  Since that day, I put all my paintings up for sale, because those that might not be up to my standards might still touch a chord with someone.  I had to set aside my pride.

So, back to my lousy wine bottle painting…one day I decided to simply paint over it and give it another chance to be beautiful and appreciated.  Isn’t that what we all want?  I had fun with it.  I let go of my expectations, because this wasn’t a clean white canvas. It was just a worthless painting that was about to be cast away.  I proceeded to apply turquoise paint, pressing cling wrap into the wet surface to create interesting texture.  I poured paint in the shape of a heart.  I stuck a rose stencil on the heart and dabbed in pink paint. I’m not sure if anyone will like the finished product, but I sure did enjoy the process.  Remember, if you are too concerned about the outcome, you forget to enjoy the experience of applying paint to canvas.  

What’s remarkable to me is how a little bit of love, compassion, and care can change a painting, someone’s day, a life. On that note, Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.  It get’s a bad rap for being a “Hallmark holiday”. Forget about the pressure to purchase the perfect expression of your feelings - the chocolates, flowers, and greeting cards.  Just concentrate on the love part. In fact, I’ve decided to devote the whole month to love and it’s power to positively transform.  On Sunday, February 10, my community art booth at the monthly food and flea will become a “Create Art with Heart” site offering family friendly Valentine related crafts from instant mini selfies to “love rock” painting, and Valentine card making too.  You’ll also find some of my original “heart art” paintings at incredibly affordable prices starting at just $15. If you want to paint a little love yourself, join me in Sanford on Friday, February 8 to paint a choice of three heart subjects. I’m reminded of the words to a song by Jackie DeShannon that my mom liked, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love".