Pressing Pause and Painting: How I re-discovered Art

For as long as I can remember I have loved art.  Drawing, painting, anything creative seemed to just feel like coming home, it immediately put me at ease.  But the busyness of life gets in the way sometimes doesn’t it?  And somewhere along the road of building a career I began doing what I loved less and less.  I hadn’t noticed it had gone, what I did notice was the immense feeling that something was missing….  Then on March 24th 2020 the whole of the UK went on lockdown due to the Covid 19 global pandemic.

Suddenly everything stopped.  No busyness.  Just me, my husband and our little puppy.  I had so much time on my hands which although wonderful was a very daunting thought!  I busied myself with yoga (lots of it!) and cooking and training the puppy, but it wasn’t enough.   I had never realised until that moment, one sunny day in April just how much of a busy mind I have, always looking ahead to the next thing to do, always doing 5 things at once.  

My studio pup Marley

 The one thing that had impacted me the most up until that point was not being able to get down to the ocean.  I live just a bit too far away from the shoreline to walk to it, so it was out of reach for me on my daily exercise.  It felt like torture to be so close yet so far from it.  I moved down to Cornwall to be next to the ocean and had not realised how important it had become as part of my daily routine.  Slowly pacing along the sand, sea spray on my face, listening to the rhythmic noise of the waves crashing against the rocks.  It soothed my senses and I could no longer get to it.  It left me feeling low and I needed to find something to do to lift my spirits.

Then one morning while doing some yoga I spotted my little box of paint and brushes under the bed.  I also remembered my parents had bought me some canvases last Christmas (as in Christmas 2018!).  That moment, spotting those brushes like that not only improved my mental wellbeing during lockdown but it has also given me a whole new life path.  I decided that if I couldn’t reach the ocean, I would bring it to my home instead.

 I started painting, surrounding myself with photos I had taken of Newquay and the North Coast of Cornwall. I painted everything that I wished was in front of me, trying to capture every bit of power, every beautiful hue of blue in the water. To my surprise hours had passed by the time I looked up from the canvas.  I felt calm, like I’d expressed my anger at being locked down, my worry of what was around the corner, I felt brighter.

Lockdown painting

I decided to share my little creation with my friends and family on social media – more just to show to my parents that I’d finally got around to using the canvases!!  The strangest thing happened though….people loved my work.  I started getting messages from people asking if I was going to sell it or make more.  At first my reaction was no, of course not!  I’m not an artist?!  I just throw a bit of paint on a canvas just to put in my home, it’s not worthy of someone giving me money for! 

Over the next few weeks, as lockdown extended, I kept on painting and sharing the pieces on social media.  I had people messaging still asking if they were for sale and in the end my husband made me realise that I could do this – my work was good enough to sell.  

I created business social media accounts, then made my first few sales.  The next thing I knew I was building a website – my very own website!  I couldn’t believe that I had gone from all but forgetting the joy that I got from painting a few weeks ago, to now wanting to spend every waking moment with a paintbrush in my hand creating.

Painting became all I could thing about, every time getting lost in the shoreline I was focusing on, creating the perfect blends of blues or the texture of the crashing wave.  The release of emotions and of finally re-discovering my love for painting was incredible.  How had I not realised this was what was missing?

From there I kept painting, kept building a body of work and evolving my style and technique the more I painted.  I started getting noticed by galleries and getting PR and advertising opportunities coming in and it was really turning into a little side hustle!

At the end of May I got the call to go back to my day job, I had missed it and the people I work with so I was pleased to be going back – but that meant I had to find a way to balance my normal life with my new artist life.  For weeks afterwards I was busy during the day then rushing home and spending the evenings keeping on top of admin or commissions.  It was therefore no surprise that I started feeling run down….but I could not stop.  I had created this thing, this business, this feeling of joy from painting and I had to find a way to make it work.

I needed to take a breather, take a bit of time for some self-care so went along to a Reiki session with my dear friend Becci from Rebecca Cornelius Healing (who is incredible by the way!).  It was only then when I stopped – just like I stopped at the start of lockdown – that I realised the reason I felt burnt out was not because of workload.  It was because still in my mind I didn’t really “believe” I was an Artist.  It had all happened so quickly and so out of the blue that my mind hadn’t caught up with what I was doing.  I am an Artist.  I have work exhibited in a gallery.  I have lots of very exciting things in the pipeline for next year.  I. Am. An Artist.

 The moment that thought set in and I stopped listening to all the negative, degrading thoughts in my mind about what I was creating, all those feelings of pressure and being exhausted lifted.  I am an Artist; I have been since I was very young, and I will not ever forget that again.  

You may be wondering why I am sharing my story with you, well there’s a few reasons.  I want to encourage more people to just give art, any form of it, a go.  You do not have to be a trained artist to paint. You just need to be able to hold a paintbrush!  The feeling of release and the expression of your emotions while you are creating is like nothing else.  You can express anger, sadness, joy, whatever you need to – get it out onto paper or a canvas.  I am no medical expert, but I know how it helped me and my mental wellbeing during a once in a lifetime event.  

The other reason I’m sharing this is to show you how stopping, really stopping and giving your mind a chance to rest; whether it be through yoga, reiki or art, can help you to see something that may have been staring you in the face for years.  That thing that might just put a huge smile on your face, that thing that you are truly meant to be doing.