painting as a way to feel freedom (Patreon)

i love painting so much.

when i paint, i experience a transportation. i've talked about it before with music, this sense of relocation, of going somewhere else, of weightlessness. with painting, i think it's related to the 'flow state', being so immersed in the process of an action that time and movement exists and converges seamlessly.

a primary mindset i enter while painting is one of letting go. it's different from drawing with pencils and pens, which feel much more deliberate and intentional. there's a high degree of control with those mediums, what you put in typically matches output. i think the presence of water changes the circumstances significantly, because you're introducing other factors like time, gravity, surface tension, humidity, etc. that are much harder to control. and that lessening of control is what i like so much. i like not being able to dictate exactly how something is going to turn out. i like being surprised by how something is going to evolve once it's on the page. it's as much a mystery to me as it is to anyone else.

i think as humans we are often caught up in the desire to control. our lives, others, the environment, there's seemingly few areas of life that we meet without some intention of control. the impulse, spread across so many facets with such urgency, can be exhausting. or i'll speak for myself and say i often feel tired by the weight of control. painting is a way to release that pattern for awhile, to accept and surrender, to experience the beauty in letting go. funny that what started as a point of frustration has evolved into an appreciation for the unknown. i'm not meant to control every step of the way, the process benefits from me taking a step back. painting teaches me again and again to let go, to trust, to be okay.