My Sad Oil Painting Experience

I haven't held a brush in five years. I forgot what turpentine smelt like. I forgot how we arranged colors on an artist's palette. However, I was still rather considered a "practicing" artist because my work is still somehow related to my education. I still draw occasionally and do the occasional design. I still read up on art and check out tutorials often. If I'm not painting now, that shouldn't mean that I should stop educating myself about it.

So there lies my mistake. Ever since I graduated I've been giving myself that excuse of I don't really have to paint to work on my skills, I can always just read up on art instead. Deep down I knew that something was wrong.

I'm not going to talk about what suddenly went wrong with my life, or how I suddenly realized I forgot how to paint. The longer I kept away from my canvas, the more difficult it was to get back to it. Like when you haven't talked to a friend in a very long time, when you call them up, you just don't know what to say, and it gets awkward.

I started buying fresh supplies often. I'd arrange them in a box and put them next to my canvas to give it company. Just to make up for the time I spent away.

Last time I looked, my colors had all dried up, and my canvas was still empty. That made my canvas sad, and made me sadder. I decided to just put everything out of sight so I won't have to deal with the guilt of my sad canvas's face looking up at me.

When people think of me as an artist I feel like a hypocrite, because artists paint, and I had abandoned that a long time ago. The only evidence of my past painting experiences were a few paintings hung up against the walls in our flat. That I wasn't even proud of.

So when one of my good friends took a drawing course, came over one day, and insisted that I show her how to oil paint, she really needed me to help her out and was really excited about it, I couldn't turn her down. Out came my dried up supplies, never used palette and brushes, and the white sad face of my canvas. I arranged everything for my friend and laid out some still life for her.

"yalla, paint."

"Show me how"

"At college they didn't show us how, they just told us to paint"

"I don't know how to paint, you have to show me"

At this point I felt bad for her. Her optimism and enthusiasm was too great, If I couldn't help myself with this, I should at least help her. So I grabbed a medium sized brush, dipped it in turpentine and started painting. We took turns painting. Neither of us had fun really. She was too scared, and I was too sorry for myself. I forgot how it was done.

So the result of my sad oil painting experience was this painting that you see. Ugly colors and incomplete objects. But at least my canvas isn't sad anymore.