Pour Painting

I love to paint. When I grab a big, white canvas, I look at it like a road trip adventure upon which I’m about to embark. Where will I go? Who knows? What will things look like when we get there? I don’t know . . . we haven’t been there before.

I particularly like acrylic pour painting. In fact, you’ll find a couple of my small canvases
adorning the walls at Oh My Cupcakes! east side location.

Are you familiar with “pour painting”? You take your paint colors and thin them down, so they are runny instead of thick. You layer the paints in a cup one by one by one. Sometimes I like to add in other things as well that give specific texture to my painting. Then, you quickly flip your cup upside down onto your canvas and let the paint run out. Rolling your canvas this way and that and moving your cup around a bit, you let the paint move out from the center in all different patterns until every surface is covered.

Here's what I love about pour painting: I can’t control how it turns out; I can only control what I put into the cup. Sometimes the drips go in a different direction than I had originally intended. Sometimes the colors blend in ways I hadn’t predicted. Sometimes it’s better than I had imagined, and sometimes it turns out kind of ugly.

But I’m not in full control of that; I’m only responsible for what I’ve put into the cup.

That’s kind of like life. Things will turn out great sometimes. They’ll turn out awful sometimes. But what we can control is what’s on our insides: our reactions and responses. We can also control the things we put into our “cup.” When I spend my time taking in endlessly negative news, scrolling social media, or eating garbage food, I can’t be surprised when the “painting” of my life doesn’t turn out the way I had hoped.

But when I’m putting good stuff inside like reading an uplifting book, writing in my gratitude journal, or committing to good sleep and movement each day, my “painting” always seems to turn out better.

Remember: you can’t control what happens when you flip your cup, and everything comes spilling out on the canvas. But you can be certain you’ll be happier with the result when you know you’ve put good things into your cup.

With blessings and gratitude,
Melissa