Vincent Van Gogh once said, “If you hear a voice within you that says you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” You do not need to be a professional artist to be able to give your home a new artistic look or to surprise your friends with your artistic works. In fact, even your little siblings or children at home can get involved in painting and actually make awesome art pieces to design your home or even commercialize the art pieces.
Related to painting, I recently visited Bali Culture Center (BCC) in Ubud. It was more than just a visit but a lifelong experience. I thought it would be a normal painting experience. However, the experience was not what I anticipated.
Having a real-life experience of painting batik “resist” ensured that I learned to make attractive designs on fabrics. You can actually make your own paintings at home by buying cheap cloth, pencils, wax and a few other materials to aid you in the process. You can use these to paint pictures to put in your living room or even to design your own clothes. The most common themes are usually nature: flowers, birds, landscape or geometrical patterns.
Together with that, I did not just learn but also got to practice making good use of the recovered domestic paints in making colourful boomerang paintings. The addition of virgin materials to these recovered paints provided adequate and very consistent paints for the production of some of the most aesthetic pieces of art I have ever made in my entire life.
The easiest to learn was the Easter egg painting. Egg painting is the art of painting or decorating eggs. It is particularly amazing because the oval, smooth and striking nature of the eggs that makes them look even more attractive when the decoration is done. You can use duck, goose and hen eggs to make your art pieces. It is advisable however to use larger and stronger eggs so that they do not easily get damaged. In most cases, you need to make a small hole on either end of the egg to remove its inner contents although you may decide not to. After that, you can start painting or dying the eggs. After the eggs are dry, you can store them for celebrations or simply as house decorations.
To flower the whole experience, I had a wonderful experience when it came to masking painting. Here, you can make your own masks by painting animal faces. It is advisable when painting to use tape to prevent certain paint colours from getting to some sections of the mask by using tape.
After learning to do these activities, even if not that perfect, I realized just how much I was capable of making something wonderful. For me personally, this kind of activity triggers one’s creativity.
