My husband has always had an interest in drawing or painting and has, over the years, created a few beautiful sketches and doodles that manage to get crumpled up and tossed away. It seems that my vision of what is good and his vision are somewhat different. Over the past few weeks, he has dabbled in acrylic painting. I think it's a new found therapy for him if he were able to believe in himself. Using my photography as inspiration, he has put together some beautiful translations on canvas. I've watched him work and concentrate only to glance again too see him paint over his progress. I wish he felt the urge to pick up the brushes more often. After his first finished painting, he seemed to have a block and no matter how many times he tried, he just kept saying he didn't know why he could do it then and not during the multiple times following.
Finally, during my ranting about my photography, he said I had gotten him wanting to paint again. I handed him a package of ACEO acrylic cards that I had bought several weeks ago and told him he ought to try a painting on one. My thoughts at the time I purchased them were that maybe if he didn't feel pressure to fill a large canvas in a short time that maybe he would try more often. Surely completing a trading card would be a quicker sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately I have found all of us lose interest if our goals take too long to achieve. Something I'm not sure how to change. The world seems to move at a much faster pace than our minds really want to go and we find ourselves concluding that we just weren't good enough...fast enough. We look for approval from every outside source and look over the reality that the only true approval we need is within ourselves. We have to quit searching for our own perfection by comparing ourselves to everyone else and trust our own instincts. We have to learn to follow what is naturally in our own heart. Then, and only then can we create things like this…an October sunset out our own backdoor. Well, technically, God created the sunset…I captured it on “film,” and Troy translated it in paint…what a wonderful way to remember a split second in life that otherwise would have been forgotten…
Not only did he finish this painting, he also sparked an interest in our 10 year-old to grab some brushes and pour himself into his own creativity. What a sight to see...a young mind...inspired by his Dad.
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