Expressing Yourself through Art

Pink Tulips, acrylic, 20” x 10”

Blog 16

When you ask me when I started painting, I cannot give you an exact time frame. As long as I can remember I have been drawing or painting. There are certain situations in my life when I can clearly remember creating a certain artwork, while there are definitely also big gaps in my creative life, and I am not only talking about in the gaps of me remembering but real gaps when life got in the way of following my passion.

When I ask other people whether they are painting or drawing, I usually get three answers: Some tell me about and share their current projects with me. Others tell me how they loved art when they were younger but that life happened and they were or are too busy for their hobby, but hope to get back into it once they have retired. The third group of people believes that they do not have a creative bone in their body.

While I am happy for those who invest in their creative hobbies, whether they are painting, drawing, knitting, crocheting, woodworking, creating music, or cake decorating to name only a few, I feel sad for the other two groups.

Do not get me wrong, I know how easy it is to give other activities priority. Nevertheless, I am always happy when I make some time for creating. I always feel so much better after I created something, whether it is a quick sketch, a detailed drawing, a doodle, a felted object or image, or a painting. As a last resort, there is still knitting that I can do while watching TV. When I concentrate on my project, I lose any sense of time. I live fully in the moment and feel energized when I see my progress. Therefore, I hope that my art will inspire you to pick up any equipment of your choice and start creating. Enjoy the process instead of chasing after the perfect finished product.

As for the third group of people, I often find out that they were discouraged by teachers or parents as a child because they did not create art according to the adults’ expectations. Unfortunately, I see more and more children who are afraid to try new things because they don’t want to fail. From the early age of childhood, they are drilled to succeed. Just look at the many competitive sports teams. These days, it does not seem to be enough to have fun, the children have to show how talented they are by competing for awards. Often, we are also our own worst critic. We are so focused on the vision of how something should look (or sound) that we do not allow for our uniqueness to shine through. Any type of creative activity gives you a wonderful tool to explore yourself and to give yourself a voice.

Talking about my own voice, I have decided to decrease my number of blogs to two a month. I love sharing my passion and helping you to improve your skills, but with my increased teaching engagements, I find it hard to spend enough time working on my own artworks. Therefore, starting in May, I will post a blog on the first and third Friday of the month. For more news about my business, I encourage you to subscribe on my website www.KerstinPeters.ca to my monthly newsletter that is published on the last Wednesday of the month.

Have a Happy Easter! Enjoy the time with your family and friends. Hopefully, we will have nice weather for a walk in nature.