Painting

 In my last post I wrote that the embroidery piece I was working on was helping me re-evaluate my relationship with embroidery. As is sometimes the case, I wrote words about something I was feeling without fully realizing I was feeling them until that moment. I had to sit for a bit with the truth of them. And in doing so, I realized that what I actually need is to take a step back from embroidery, at least in the sense of my embroidering pieces to sell. 

I don't even know if I can explain it more than that it's just a feeling I have that I need to follow through on. But one aspect of it is that I want to devote some time and effort to learning more about painting, with acrylics, watercolor, and maybe gouache at some point. I've dabbled, but I haven't put serious effort into learning techniques and improving skills, or even into figuring out what types of painting I most want to paint (finding my style, I guess). And I think a lot of the time when I am choosing a creative activity, I opt for embroidery because I am comfortable with it, instead of choosing something that leaves me feeling so much more out of my element. But the only way to get more comfortable is to be uncomfortable first.

I also have been having some ambivalence about Etsy and social media, and I have been wondering whether those platforms are part of the right path for me, but that's a musing for another day.

The point for now is that I want to get more serious about learning how to paint. In that vein, I picked up a couple of books on the subject from the library the other day. Yesterday I did a very simple exercise, just making marks, getting a feel for my brushes and what kind of viscosity I can get with different amounts of water mixed in to my acrylic paint. Unfortunately, I learned that a lot of the paint that I currently have is getting old and kind of globby. It's high time I purchased a new batch of colors, so that's next on the agenda.