Life is a masterpiece – start painting!

Life is unique to each of us and we each have our own journey to tell. As we reach our 60’s, everything seems to change. It’s a bit like someone has turned a page in our personal storybook. Memories and reflections happen more frequently, as does watching the clock and calendar. More frequently, we feel a need to enjoy life more and more often.

Create your memory masterpieces
You are the creator of your masterpiece, your life. If you haven’t already done so, grab a blank canvas and start painting! Document your story, your memories, your interpretations of the many life-changing events on adventure of your lifetime!

A blank canvas
As an artist, I see life starting out as a blank canvas, a brilliant opportunity to document our journey in life that can reflect experiences, accomplishments, emotional interpretations, happiness and sadness, acceptance and rejection, perfection and imperfections. A blank canvas provides opportunities to manifest a lifetime masterpiece or many masterpieces.

Painting by numbers inside the lines is a pretty safe approach to life, but it takes little to no skill this way. When you reach the end of your journey, you want a real masterpiece – a masterpiece of awesomeness. Time to be adventurous and step outside your comfort zone, colour outside the lines once in a while and venture to see how your world changes.

What will be your style?
Starting out, you’ll be new to this, but you’ll learn along the way. You’ll paint the style that best suits you, but remember to make allowances for challenges through change. You are an individual and your interpretations of life will be different to your neighbours, expect this. Some create realistic art works, some create surrealism, whereas others create abstract. A masterpiece will include wishful thinking and imagination, wisdom and peace, traditionally, or abstract, with animals or flora, cityscapes or landscapes. Each a reflection of your wonderful journey.

What size canvas should you start with?
Life at birth automatically provides us with a huge canvas. Some of us choose to divide that canvas into small squares, picking one square and starting with that, taking one day at a time. A small canvas allows us to work within our comfort zone as confidence grows. Later on your collection of small canvasses can be collated together as a tree of life – your life, your journey. Others may prefer to challenge life fully from day one. Attack the whole canvas, from corner to corner and as the journey continues this type of painting becomes more of a collage of evolution and your changing times.

Which medium should I chose?
Choose the medium you are comfortable with, what works best for you. Your life path is your choice as are the turns you take along the way. Be comfortable and confident with your choices, then enjoy. Life is not set in concrete, it’s your journey, your masterpiece and you are in charge. For broad experiences I recommend you challenge life and try all different types of mediums. Be creative and experiment. As an artist you may prefer traditional oils, vibrant acrylic paints or pastel water paints, while your friends may prefer strong charcoal or petite pencil lines and shades. What matters is the uniqueness of your masterpiece.

Paint brushes?
It’s good to have quite a variety of paint brushes, so get a big jar or pot and be prepared. Approach each step in life from many different angles creating many different textures. Experiment with thin lines, broad lines, detailed lines and broad areas of open interpretations.

The Masterpiece
The best masterpiece of your life is one that you have created and put onto a canvas. Every completed canvas means something special and unique has happened to its creator. Your themes are your investment in life, whether you make your picture piece by piece forming a tree of images or a continual changing investment reflecting a collage of life itself. Creating a masterpiece can be visually stunning, innovative, exciting and decorative within your style of creative art, but often it can reflect our environment, financial status, physical or emotional status.

Feel Special
To those around you who watch you create over the years, you will open their eyes to your journey through life. You may even mentor some along the way. The secrets revealed on your canvasses are from the heart and valuable. Whatever the outcome of your masterpiece, know that it informs of your journey in time.

Never leave areas of empty white canvas. Never procrastinate about your journey. Always finish your dreams, reach for your goals and create masterpieces.

Happy painting fellow artists!

Image: Marcos Vasconcelos Photography