Life Really IS an Oil Painting

Have you ever watched an oil painter paint?
Not many people have.
And most would find it extremely boring.
I’ll admit, I really hadn’t watched someone paint oil until this summer.

But today sitting in a planning meeting with my coworkers, my experience of watching an incredible painter paint oil overwhelmed my thoughts.

I’m an accountant by trade. My tendency is to try to define everything with lines, boundaries, rules and limitations. In my meeting we were attempting to do just that with the tasks that need to be accomplished in my department.

Life can’t be defined, lined, ruled, limited or boundaried. Things change, we accidentally mess up, minds get changed, circumstances evolve, nothing stays the same. And so when Hyatt Moore painted oil in his “Loosen Up” workshop, he stressed to just go with it. Things can always be made into other things. With oil you can completely change a painting from something that doesn’t even closely resemble the end to the end just by painting more layers of oil. And the more layers the more depth.

Isn’t this life. It starts looking like one thing and then more layers, color, depth and changes in light and perspective can completely alter the end result creating more beauty than may have been imagined from the get go.

Here is one of the paintings I watched Moore transform… Red Dress Sun Hat.