In the Moment

 As January  comes to a close, I'd like to talk to you about my most recently completed painting entitled "In the Moment" as it was kind of inspired by the month of January. 

During the month of January, I was supposed to participate in the Pancakes and Booze art show. I've participated in this show in previous years and wanted to bring something new and fresh. That's something I want to start doing from here on out - creating a new piece for each event I participate in each month.

So I started thinking about what I could create. I thought about the month of January and started doing research on what January represents. The first thing I learn ed was that the color for the month of January was Garnett - a deep, dark red. So I knew I wanted to do something that was mainly red. I've been feeling monochromatic paintings and definitely wanted to continue with that theme. 

I also learned that we get the name January from the Roman god Janus. He is a 2-headed god of doorways. His one head looks back at the past and his other head looks at the future. Then I started thinking about how this all could relate to my life.  That's when the lightbulb moment hit!

As a person, I have a bad habit of dwelling on the past and wanting to change things. Like wishing I could go back and say something different in a conversation, or doing something else in a certain situation. It's almost like I live with this continual regret about decisions I've made in my life. 

I'm also a planner and I always want to be prepared for unusual occurrences. As an instructor at my previous job, I would always over prepare  for the class I was teaching. I don't like being caught off guard or look like I don't know what I'm talking about. This process made me an excellent instructor! But over preparing for your daily life is stressful, exhausting, and overall unhealthy. I plan for things that might happen and do everything in my power to avoid any negative experiences, no matter how small.

Original idea sketch for the painting

I've decided 2023 is going to be the year that I start trying to get a hold of these 2 bad habits and learn to be more present in my life. Live in the moment instead of in the past or future. That's when I decided I needed a 3rd head. The 3rd head represents stopping to smell the roses and enjoying the small things in life that we come across daily but are too distracted to even acknowledge them.  

Underpainting

To be honest, I had a really hard time painting those roses. I've only ever painted roses once and I wasn't completely happy with how they turned out. So, with this painting I wanted to improve on my technique. I re-painted the roses 4x! I'm satisfied with them now but will continue to improve on my flower painting skills. I've learned from other artist that flowers are hard to paint. I guess they are especially hard for someone who's a portrait artist like myself 😂

2nd iteration of flowers

3rd iteration of flowers

So you may be wondering how the art show turned out. Well, unfortunately, COVID came  knocking on my door the week of the show so I was not able to go. 😞 But I will definitely reapply next year!

"In the Moment" is available for purchase in my shop if you are interested.

Original painting available now!

Let me know in the comments how you live in the moment. Maybe I can learn something for you!