I started 2016 with the intention of seeing more of the positive in my life, less of the negative. Being human, I haven’t been perfect at it but I haven’t done too badly!

Then about a week ago I got very angry. I’ll spare the details because it involves family members and, well – it’s personal and a long story. It’s enough to say that I was made very angry and got my feelings hurt. The next day I was still upset and I decided I needed to paint it out.

It was that or smack someone who needed smacking.

I dug out a big canvas that I painted a few years back. Ironically, this painting was created years ago to help me deal with another difficult time – finding out my sister had cancer. (Thankfully she’s fine now!) 

This is the way I left the painting a few years ago. I never felt it was finished; it was about the process for me (art therapy!), not a product.

So – I needed to paint and I needed it bad. I decided to add bold punches to this piece – especially touches of black without taking away from the bright colors…

I added even more huge flowers and more layers of color…

I’m really liking it. Before I added to it, my husband wanted to hang it in our bedroom but I wasn’t feeling it. Now I think it will look great on our blue walls.

I’m really lucky I have a creative outlet when life gets rough. Both times I worked on this large canvas was because things were hard. I was able to refocus my energy to this art piece. An added plus – I hadn’t been painting for a few weeks now, but pulling out this canvas has had me working on it a little every day for the past week.  





I’ll hang it in our bedroom sometime this week…although I’ll probably still take it down every now and then to add to it…

Sometimes a piece of art is never down!

So tell me – what do you do when life gets tough? What creative outlets, if any, do you have?

‘Til next time…