Painting

First Painting

Oct 14, 2020

Last week, in a domestic version of the popular sip and paint I made my first painting. I ambitiously set out to copy figure 1.

This was my version. Although the colours are less vibrant, I was quite happy with how it turned out.

This week I finished reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  The book talks about the god mode that we often feel while fully immersed in a task. This could be in your work, on your hike or while you're cooking. The author encourages us to treat every activity as an act of flow, as it is an optimum way of maximise learning and enjoyment in life. The pursuit of flow is a means of diversifying your happiness. As evolutionary beings, we are wired to enjoy flow as you might know yourself given the amount of peace you feel walking down a leafy track in the middle of a serene forest.  You are fully immersed in the sounds of nature — the flowing of the river, the cracking of twigs under your feet and the sound of frogs in the distant.

While doing this painting, I felt a similar sense of flow. It was the perfect challenge. The author highlights that flow is attained when the challenge of a task is matched with our skill. If the challenge is higher then we feel stressed, any lower and we feel bored.

Throughout my life, the sense of flow was common to the activities I enjoyed, running, doing maths, reading books. Despite lacking the conscious knowledge of flow, I naturally gravitated towards it. We all do.

Second Painting

April 11, 2021

For my second sip and paint, I set out to recreate this beautiful picture of an owl.

Below is my version. Although I botched the eyes, I was pleased with how it came out. The activity was thoroughly enjoyable. I tried to not focus on copying the original exactly. It felt good to add my own flair to it. The colours and strokes didn't need to match up exactly.