I started painting seriously at the end of an unusually frantic summer. My graphic design business was super busy—and summers are usually a welcome quiet time full of paddling and swimming. I didn’t get any time off all summer and it was making me grumpy. I was starting to feel like I hated being a designer, which isn’t true at all.

Finally, a week off appeared in early September, all very last minute. The catch was that my husband had booked an intensive birding trip with a friend—not my thing at all. I knew a week off by myself could be great, but only if I had a plan.

My brain was really tired and left to my own devices I knew I’d end up lounging on the couch far too often. Next thing you know, the week would be over and I wouldn’t feel refreshed or restored at all.

Then I had one of those Eureka! moments and knew that I should paint for the week. It made sense—I desperately needed to get away from my computer, and I needed to reclaim the joy of being creative.

So I just went for it. I had a few old art supplies left over from my graphic design studies. I picked up a few more and a big pad of paper. Then I threw plastic over my design office and painted for an entire week. I was deeply happy.

Next thing I knew I had hundreds of dollars worth of paint, an easel, canvases, and I was painting whenever I had a spare moment. I don’t really know why I got obsessed with painting. I just listened to my intuition and it told me to paint.

Trusting my gut

As I’ve gotten older, I feel more and more dialed in to my intuition—and I’ve learned to listen when I have a real gut feeling about something. One day a couple of years ago, my husband and I had breakfast at a diner in a little village near Georgian Bay. A few weeks later we owned a house in that village and were getting ready to sell our house in Toronto!

It was a great decision for us. I’m all for thinking. A good pro/con list can do wonders, but sometimes you can’t reason it all out. You just have to trust your gut and make a move.

In that spirit, I signed up for an intensive course with Nicholas Wilton, called the Creative Visionary Program (aka CVP). It’s an expensive 12-week online course. It really helped me figure out what I wanted to paint and gave me practical tips for creating a serious studio practice.

Nothing but time

Then the pandemic hit and as the weeks went on many of my design clients hit pause on their projects. I had nothing but time. I spent hours hiking the wilderness on our doorstep and the rest of the time painting.

I also did a bit of practical work to create space for painting. My husband helped me create a wonderful studio in our home. He put down a plywood floor I could spill paint on, put up two painting walls, and customized an old kitchen table so I could work standing up.

I painted everything 5 different shades of white, which freaks me out a bit (I love richly coloured walls), but the white helps me see colour in my paintings more accurately and keeps the room bright, even at night.

So now every day begins and ends with a visit to my studio to check in on the paintings. At other times I really study them, but at night and early in the morning I try to let them just roll around in my subconscious. Then I eat breakfast, or go to bed, and see what unfolds when I’m back in the studio ready to paint.

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