A Better Plan

Today I set out to paint with a very specific goal in mind: yellow. I wanted to create a 9” x 12” acrylic ink piece that was predominately yellow with maybe a few streaks of shimmery silver, smokey gray, and slivers of deep black.

As I began mixing the yellow and metallic inks, I was reminded of an old t-shirt I have had since kindergarten (it was giant on me back then). The mixed metallic-yellow ink was the same color as that shirt, so I continued down that path of inspiration.

The shirt was a participation prize I received when I hopped to raise money for Leukemia. I had used blue puff fabric paint at some point in my youth to write “Do the Hop” on one of the sleeves. My skills with fabric paint were not so hot back then - the struggle to evenly get the fabric paint to come out was and is still real.

Last year, I revamped the t-shirt from drab regular sleeves to cute cap sleeves. I bought a color match of the puff fabric paint and re-wrote (with better penmanship) “Do the Hop” on one of the cap sleeves.

I used the color of the fabric paint as my inspiration in my acrylic ink piece. Yellow and a bold, deep blue. I knew that these two would mix on the yupo paper and make green. I did not want green. I wanted yellow and blue. I fought the green hard. First, I allowed a little. Then, I was sad that I had maybe wasted this painting. Next, I tried my best to make it work, unsuccessfully. And then, finally, I surrendered to the green.

I let my painting be the colors it wanted to be. I leaned into the green and ended up creating one of my favorite pieces of art, so far.

Life is like that. We grieve the piece of art we wanted our lives to be. Then, we embrace the beautiful work of art that our lives have actually become. And we are filled with gratitude for how everything turned out better than we planned. ;)