I live in a world of controlled chaos, creativity, and endless hope for the future. By day, I am a high school English teacher. I spend hours teaching, planning, grading, thinking about field trips and projects and extra-curriculars. I am often in the whirlwind of ensuring students are ready for whatever step they choose to take once they graduate and move forward in life.

Finding myself caught in the busyness that is the lives of other people’s children and our education system, I realized I needed something grounding. In that moment, I began my painting journey, and it is truly a journey.

I began learning the Bob Ross wet-on-wet techniques through classes and painting along with his Joy of Painting. I learned to push trees out of my brushes, give little rocks a friend or two, and shape some happy clouds floating in a phthalo blue sky. Like anyone who watched Bob, I couldn’t help but to be struck by some of the simple and profound nuggets of wisdom he dropped along the way. During his show, Bob would say in his low, steady voice that “It’s hard to see things when you are too close. Take a step back and look,” or, “If you have light on light, you have nothing. If you have dark on dark, you basically have nothing. Just like in life. You gotta have a little sadness once in a while so you know when the good times come.”

Those small pieces remind me that there is often simple truth to be found in the most unlikely places. In addition to these little truths, the process of painting has helped me steady the busyness around me. I find that I am more mindful of a moment: the way colors blend in an early sunrise over the school building before I walk in, the fall leaves popping bright against grey autumn skies, and reflections pulled long across a lake’s edge. Those moments center me, and I find that same quiet, stillness when I break out my brushes and put paint to canvas.

It is my hope that others can find the simple truths and simple quiet joys in their own lives. For some, it won’t be at the end of a fan brush, but for some it might. I hope that I can help a few others find that joy as they move along their own painting journeys.

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