Back in May, I wrote a three-part blog post series called “Life In Overdrive” where I had been feeling like I wasn’t doing something creative for myself, and so I went on a “me retreat” to figure that out. When I had arrived at this location, they were offering a painting workshop and since I’d always wanted to learn how to paint, I signed up for it. It didn’t turn out to be what I had expected AT ALL. It didn’t teach the skill of painting. It was about finding creative ways of expressing yourself, which at the time felt very hippie voodoo new age what did I get myself into type of thing. But it ended up being an incredible experience that helped me find all kinds of ways of expressing myself. Mainly, just having the confidence to make a thing and not worry about what anyone else thinks of it. Creative freedom is the best way to describe it, I suppose.

Since I had always wanted to learn to paint, I set aside the fear of how to do it and just got supplies and figured it out for myself. I would see things and really want to paint them, and so I did. I know I have SO much to learn but I am loving taking the steps toward doing this thing I’ve always wanted to do. I shared my progress on Twitter and heard from a bunch of people who are either doing their own creative thing and sharing how great they feel doing it, or I hear from people who have also felt like they’ve wanted to do something creative but had been afraid to start. My posts about it here and on social media sparked creativity in people I’ve never met, and now we’re all making a thing that makes us happy. Hooray!

As I started sharing things, I had many requests to sell my artwork which COMPLETELY freaked me out. I was doing this thing for me and didn’t feel like I could charge anyone for a thing I made because I didn’t feel like I had enough experience to suddenly sell what I was making. Seven months later, I finally feel like it’s okay to share it in some unique kind of way, a little at a time and so yesterday, I quietly opened an Etsy shop with one item: a set of 10 blank notecards that have two different digital images of my first watercolor paintings. EEEEP! They are silhouette paintings of trees that I saw at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It’s crazy. They are literally the first and second thing I painted and I’m selling them. YIPES! Even though I shared the paintings on Twitter, it’s kinda scary to make it into a thing that people can own and now that I’ve made it available, the scary feeling has been replaced with excitement. Yay!

If you’d like to see what I did or even order a set for yourself or someone you love, I would be honored if you checked out my tiny store. And as I create more things, I will put them there, possibly freaking out right before I make it public, and then doing a happy dance that I was brave enough to do so.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/PigmentToBe?ref=hdr_shop_menu