The glint of the sun on white fur, the gleam on burnished brass, the silken hues on a flower petal and the myriad of colours one can see on a single drop of water. What are these but simple colours? A little green, a little blue and a dab of golden. Why do these colours hold a world inside them?
 
While walking upon sandy beaches, rocky mountains or in the gravelly mayhem of a city, what possesses us to capture the moment in a picture? Humans are creatures of beauty and we are strangely possessive. Like a child runs after a butterfly eager to capture its light wings in its chubby hands, we grow up and try to capture beauty in small objects. Its simply not enough to see the blood orange of a sunset. So we paint things we see. We make videos about it and upload it to our Instagram accounts. We write copious amounts of boring poetry and we try to preserve the sky in our phones.
 
Painting is an extraordinary activity full with extraordinary exasperation. I cannot count the number of times I have seen something so clear in my head or in front of my eyes and my hands have failed to materialize those images. But there is something in the frantic dabbing of a brush that brings peace.
And while a pretentious viewer might try to find deeper meanings, it is perfectly okay to be shallow about it. You can fill the paper with blue just because you feel like it. Scribble some dark black. Make your portraits lopsided. Fill them with symbols that mean things and don’t. The bent arms of a clock, the anime characters and swords, the stereotypical silhouette—each must be resurrected from the ruins of your mind. For these become the bleached bones of your story.
 
And its okay if it doesn’t look perfect. If it doesn’t look anything like what it was in your head. Unless your midway in your quest to be the next Picasso it really doesn’t matter.
 
Most importantly make it personal. In all honestly, an empty bag of Cheetos, a blanket and a rainy day generates stronger emotion in a viewer than a pompous landscape scenery.
So, go ahead and try painting. Your painting might be no Bob Ross painting. In fact, it might resemble a five-year old’s scribbles. But as long as you enjoy doing it and it makes you happy, its completely worth it.
 
 
– Adyesha Singhdeo