Emotions We Feel as We Paint

I have read that one's emotions while painting really influence the outcome of one's work. I believe this to be true. I am generally in a good mood when I paint, because it is one of my favorite activities. I love God's creation, and I love painting it. I know of many painters who play music while they paint to create the proper emotions for the piece they are working on. I don't usually listen to music while I work, but maybe I should give it a try! My not listening to it is a throwback to my Air Force days when we had to work in radio silence due to the fact that no radio transmissions could make it into or out of the top-secret vault I worked in. It was weird to work without any music on at first--but then I got used to it and realized how I could really think clearly without the distraction of it.

Ah, but I digress--there have been two paintings I have completed that were very challenging emotionally for me to paint. One is the girl from Haiti. I worked several days on that portrait of her, and found myself with tears in my eyes as thought about this happy, beautiful child and all she and other orphans in Haiti had to endure during and after the devastating earthquake of 2009. I had to work very hard to re-create that child's beautiful smile as I was crying. Whoa! ...I'm tearing up again just thinking about it.

The other is a painting I recently completed plein air at our zoo in Denver. I did it in front of a statue close to where the sea lions and seals reside at the Northern Shores section. It is a tribute to a rescued sea lion who was missing his back flippers. This magnificent animal was not only a survivor, but an overcomer!

My family loves to go to the zoo. My 24 year-old daughter's favorite zoo animals are the seals and sea lions. We saw Bismarck in a show last March of 2012. He moved through the water so gracefully that at first, I didn't even realize he was disabled. We always enjoy the sea lion show, but this one was particularly poignant.

This year, I was planning to do a painting of something at the zoo for the Denver Plein Air Arts Fest, but I just hadn't made it there yet. The festival runs through Sept 16. Then, last week I read about Bismarck, and how he passed away on August 22, 2012, during a surgery intended to help him. I sat there and cried like a baby and couldn't get it off my mind. I read how he had really become an ambassador for disabled people visiting the zoo. I guess that's why it struck such a chord with me. I imagined how sad all the people would be, especially the children. I remembered seeing a statue of sea lions at the zoo from when we saw Bismarck perform last March. So, I went to the zoo to attempt the painting.

I know that plein air work is more about the light and shadows in what we see outside, but I infused this painting with light and shadow to represent what this awe-inspiring animal had achieved. I decided to use a tetrad of colors to make the painting more visually appealing.

Even though I did the painting from a statue of two sea-lions holding up a ball, one of the staff who works by Northern Shores at the zoo stopped by and told me that Bismarck and the other sea lions always sunned themselves in the afternoons on their rock, and that my painting captured that. A little later on, a lady who had on a zoo-keeper's outfit came up to talk with me about the painting just as I was finishing up. She said that she recognized "Biz" from "all the way back there" and she just had to stop and talk with me about it. She got tears in her eyes, which made me get choked up again. I had to get a grip on myself several times while painting--this was and is quite an emotional painting for me. I plan to enter it into the Denver Plein Air show. I will donate half of any proceeds I make from this piece on this website to the Denver Zoo.

I have been extra tired over the past several days. All this emotion has been draining. I have recently achieved my 5-year cancer survivor status, so technically I am a "success" even though I am not totally cancer-free. I am thankful for the amount of healing I have been given by our Savior, Jesus Christ. I have learned to live with my cancer just as Bismarck learned to live with his disability. Hmmm, maybe that's why this struck me so. Working through one's emotions IS work, isn't it? Life is precious--celebrate it!

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