''Destiny'' - 06.07.2014

"The only time I feel alive is when I’m painting" 

- Vincent van Gogh

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Why do people paint?

Some paint to get rid of the excess of creative energy, others paint because they want to recreate a famous painting or want to paint like some famous artist; some people paint because they have always done it, since they can remember, they've always been painting; some are forced by their parents and others just want to make some money. There are also people who just like to be creative, they like to make something new, something unique, something that represents their emotions and state of mind.


Unless you're ready to make mistakes and learn how to work with, not against them, don't try to make art. In art, mistakes are a crucial part of the process, just like in life, we learn from mistakes and try to use them to our advantage.
I believe that everybody starts their life as an artist. Not necessarily a painter, but as an artist of some sort.
Some people try writing songs, creating melodies, singing in a jazzy way others try painting, sketching, sculpting and drawing, but most of them give up on it because they believe their passion is just a silly phase, just a childish dream which will never have a permanent place in their life. 

Many people give up on their dreams simply because the society tells them to do so as it's become more acceptable to live a life with no dreams, passion and happiness, but with money, than it us to live a fulfilling one while being poor.
Slowly people are turning into robot-like creatures that live in order to make money they believe they need in order to live. They fall into a never ending cycle. It's sad that money is such an important aspect of our lives.
It's so important that people choose to abandon  their dreams in order to make more and more and even more money. I don't want to live like that. I'd rather be poor and happy, than rich and stuck in a job I hate.
What's the point of life? Isn't it to be happy...? 

Henry Miller in his book [''To love is to paint again''] said that ''poverty is one of the misfortunes people seem to dread even more than sickness''. How strange is that? Surprising? Not necessarily. The main criterion for a ''happy'' life is money. People will not classify your life as complete if you don't reach a certain salary level. How awful is that? People are more scared of being poor than they are of being sick...
The weird thing is that you can't even get water... or food... without money. Money became more crucial to our survival.... than water.

Dreams don't matter anymore... being an artist doesn't matter anymore... then what does matter? money? yes... for some people... 
Money is a crazy invention... It's supposed to give people freedom, but instead it enslaves them.

I don't want to turn my hobby into a job. I don't want others to control my passion. If I did turn this into a job, I would have to start taking commissions, which would mean that I wouldn't be able to paint what I want. 

I paint to keep myself calm, relaxed and happy. I love seeing progress in my paintings... My style changed so much this year.. the first proper oil painting I ever created was in February 2014. And it looks completely different when compared with my other ones. And that's what keeps me going; trying new techniques makes it exciting for me... My dream is to exhibit my work in a gallery, but I doubt I'll ever get there, because if I did, then I'd always be trying to take the paintings off the walls and change something in them :')

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Here's something I created today :)

It's called ''Destiny''. A bit unrelated to the essay above, but that's the name I find the most fitting for a painting of the sea.

As always oil paints from Winsor and Newton (Artist's range) on a 18"x14" canvas.

Lots of Love,

Marlena 

"Sweet Dreams" 25.06.2014

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."
- Vincent van Gogh

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Why are people so obsessed with knowing things for certain?
Nobody wants to make a decision unless they're 100% sure that this is the right one. But it's impossible to know. You can't predict the future all you can do is assume that what you're going to do will have some predictable effect on your life, but there is no way for you to actually know, for you to be certain of the outcome of your actions. Of course, making predictions is useful, you shouldn't decide to do something risky without analysing all possible outcomes and then only if it's worth the risk you should proceed. Quite often all we think of is the immediate future which gets directly affected by our decision, rarely we consider the long term effects of our actions. All we can do is analyse and predict, but we will never be 100% certain that what we're doing is right. We'll only know when we finally see the long term effect of our decision. 

People are impatient. Who wants to wait for years in order to see that their investment will pay off? Who wants to wait for  years to see if what they love doing will become the only thing they ever have to do?

All we have is here and now. And that's all we have for certain.

Okay, people like to feel in control of their own lives, and indeed, there are some aspects of our lives that we are able to control, but many things are out of our control. We can't control other people, we can't make them react how we want them to react in order for the scenario from our heads to become real. Some people try to manipulate others... Recently I realised how easy it was for people to manipulate me. I would always do the opposite of what they're telling me to do. Let's say they were giving me advice, no matter which side they stood on, I'd be on the opposite side arguing against them and if they were persistent with their argument I'd end up doing the opposite to what they were suggesting. I realised how easily that could be used against me. Now I know and I can control it and stop people from doing so, but not by controlling them, but by controlling the way I react to them.

Oops.. I've gone a bit off topic... :)

So as I was saying earlier, nothing in life is certain and all we can do is try our best to keep up and to stay on top of our lives so we actually feel like we're in control :)

It is IMPOSSIBLE to predict the future. 

All we have is sweet dreams. Sweet dreams about the future, sweet dreams about things that may never happen.

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My latest painting is called "Sweet Dream" and it was inspired by Ed Sheeran's song ''I See Fire''.. 

As I was listening to his song an image formed in my head and it just had to turn into a painting :)

Here it is: 

Oil on a 18"x14" canvs.

As always Oil paints by Winsor and Newton. This time from the Artists' range :)

Lots of Love,

Marlena