There it was, a big black ugly line right through the middle of my painting. I paused looking at it... it seemed like a good idea when I put it there; now, I had no idea what to do next. Charlie, my art teacher walked over to where I was sitting and gingerly scratched his chin, "OH! That's bold!" he said in the most optimistic artist teacher tone I think he could muster...

"Where do I go from here?" I asked jokingly because the only solution I could find was to let the paint dry and paint over that icky line. It was covering a mish mosh of red, yellow, turquoise magenta and orange.

"Make the colours darker," he directed, "more vivid and add black here and there."
I never have a plan, per se, when I start these paintings... I just paint, as I feel compelled to... with whatever shapes come to my mind. So, I did as Charlie instructed, adding to it bold swirls of black over the colours. In the end, the painting looked something like a stained glass window. Still not happy with it I left it at Charlie's art studio to dry overnight.

I had to skip a few classes over the course of a few weeks. When I returned a week ago, I found Charlie had put a gloss over it and the colours just sort of came alive on the canvas. I actually decided I liked the painting and so did others in my class.

As I think about it, life is a bit like that painting. We all make choices we are not happy about from time to time and think they are absolutely the worst things we could have done. But, if we just give it some thought and creativity it's still possible to create a beautiful work of art and those dark areas become serendipitous strokes of luck. Each experience is like a colour in our lives, some bright and cheerful, others dark and dreary, in my opinion, meaning is found in how you view the whole picture, not in one particular shade of grey.

: )