Forest Girl Original Painting

 My thoughts on this piece while painting it were a great deal on the subject of sadness and anxiety. I'm working on making a timelapse video of this piece and will be talking on this subject in the video (I’ll post it here when I have it finished).

  While I may have been thinking about the subject of sadness and anxiety while painting it, this is not true to exactly what the piece means for me. When I see it, I do see a little bit of sadness as the girl is crying, but also I see the transformation of beauty as it turns into a rainbow and the beauty of the emotion itself. Being sad has its own beauty & grace, for when you're sad it's such a chance to grow, change, and reflect. 

I think this is the first of many paintings that I will do about transformation. While painting it, it really helped bring me a deeper understanding & acceptance of the beauty in sadness, which I used to not be able to accept at all, therefore I was unaccepting of myself as well. 

Painting it has helped me to accept my own emotions of sadness, I do remember one point when I was very sad, I was able to get out of a slump by seeing the painting and remembering there is beauty in pain. It's not the first time that my artwork has been able to do this, get me out of a slump & help me not to sink deeper. I really hope that my paintings do this for others too, in fact this is a very big motivation for selling my paintings and part of the vision I hold for the purpose of the work. 

For a long time I resisted painting any sort of sadness into a painting, mostly because I was so unaccepting of my strong emotions, for I am extremely sensitive. It is so nice to show this other side of me, because (you can see here where) at one point I was not showing this other side & I thought that if I did show this other side I'd end up making really dark art, but honestly this is such a beautiful piece after-all. I do want to point out that I did not go into this painting with these intentions, I didn't have a meaning or reason to portray, I was simply intrigued by the idea of a forest made out of a woman and her legs. It is interesting how such deep profound meaning can come out of an image even without the intentions originally. I know this is simply because God is at work through my work, to teach me and to teach others, I’m learning how to step out of the way even more! I know that you and others will find your own meaning, which is just as special as mine and I encourage you to do that!

 I would like to reflect more on some verses that really stood out to me while painting it or at least the image made me think of these verses. 

The first verse that came to mind was,

 “He put another parable before them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.  It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches."~Matthew 13:31‭-‬32 

But 3 other verses that go well with this topic are,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”~John 12:24 

“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body...What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”~1 Corinthians 15:36‭-‬38, 42-44 

“Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!”~Psalm 126:5

These verses explain very much the same thing, in that there is so much beauty in pain and the dying away of things create space for new, more beautiful things to grow. And while I am of the firm belief that you do not have to experience pain or depression in order to find a so-called ‘enlightenment’ I do recognize the significance in the parables and analogies of a seed dying & the power of such a small thing turning into a big thing! 

I think it's very self-explanatory & I'll write more on it in the future! I've already written so much on plants in the Bible (you can go here to see that) I will also keep painting plants so I'll be writing about the analogy again and again.