Unexpected Results
Monday, August 30, 2010 at 9:47AM Last night was a good night.
I had the best time working with my family on our Diabetes Art Day projects.
Hopefully by now you have heard about this awesome event going on all over the Diabetes Online Community. And if you haven’t you need to read this post from Lee Ann Thill.
I should tell you that I had no clue what to do for this day but I did know that I wanted to do something. I never studied art but whenever I had an assignment in school to do something artsy, I always loved it.
My daughter Gillian has always loved and enjoyed art. She likes to paint, draw, color, and even do abstract sort of things out who knows what. She has a good eye for color and her brain works in a way that is so different that I enjoy hearing her interpretation of things. She is our little Monet.
Yesterday we went to the Wal-Mart (Yikes, that store is insane) and picked up a couple of small canvases and some paint brushes. Gillian has water colors, acrylics, and pastels at home. The entire time we were in the store and in line, I was trying to decide what I was going to do. Still nothing came to my head.
When we got home we laid out all of our supplies and I sat there with a sketch pad sheet in my hand. Staring at the blank space before I attempted to let my mind drift and let my pencil start to draw but I could not bring myself to put the tip of the pencil on the paper. It was awful. I was stuck and I hadn’t even started!
I went back to Lee Ann’s blog since she is the originator of Diabetes Art Day and thought I would check around on her site for some help, and did I ever find it!
Check out these posts!
So You Say You Aren’t An Artist?
After reading those posts I realized that I just needed to start and see what happened. The belief that what ever you make is art and it’s exactly what it is supposed to be was the way I always felt but for some reason I was going in with the thought that it had to be perfect. It turns out that whatever you make is perfect. Even if what you ended up with is not what you meant to. I think there is a reason for that if you look inside deep enough.
So first I started with pastels and I loved getting my fingers into the art. Rubbing and blending colors made my brain come alive. I was so inspired and excited and really loved how what I made came out. It felt so good and it felt so simple. The image poured out of me. I stepped back and looked at it and searched for the flaws. There were many.
I saw lines that spilled into other lines, things looked messy and some of the color was way too dark for what I wanted. I was upset.
Gillian looks at it and say, “I love it! It came out perfect.”
She was right. It did. I saw it again and my eyes just took it all in. The process, the inspiration, the reason. All of it was there and it was perfect.
All 4 of us made something and I went so far as to break out some paints and do something else. I want to do more tonight. Being able to create art is such a good feeling because you get something out that wasn’t in you and you learn a little something about yourself in the process. So awesome.
Anyhow, I hope you all participate and those of you with families, have them hop in too. I learned a lot of how my family deals with my disease and the fears they have about it. It was extremely eye opening and lead to some serious conversations about diabetes.
Last night was a good night.
Reader Comments (7)
I had so much fun coloring yesteday for my project - made me realize how much I missed out on being a kid again with my older niece and nephew. Need to remember to make the time with this latest round of nieces!
Looking forward to seeing you guys works of art! (as well as the rest of the DOC)
I had so much fun putting my two little D-Art Day creations together this weekend, and get to go home and have more fun tonight with Suzi making one of her own! Now, after reading your post, I want to go home and create EVEN MORE! Stick figures will be out en mass on my blog this Wednesday! BO-AA HA HAAA!
Yay, George, that is so awesome!!! I can't wait to see your art!
I can't wait to see what you all came up with...such a creative family.
I can totally picture Gillian getting into that, just the way you describe. I can't wait to see all of them!
I just loved reading this, George. It brought tears to my eyes to know you and your family got into like you did, and really got what I hoped my DOC family would get from Diabetes Art Day. I'm so happy you moved past feeling stuck, and once you started, saw that there is no wrong way to do it. Such a beautiful post, and I can't wait to see your family's beautiful art that came from the heart.