Can learning to paint help transform your vision for life?

By Margie Goldsmith

By day three of my stay at the Lodge at Woodloch, a destination spa in Hawley, Pennsylvania, I am exhausted. I’ve already hiked up a mountain, done Nature Yoga on a forest path, danced in Zumba Gold and splashed through Aqua Toning. The afternoon schedule offers Pilates Mat, Trail Biking, and Cardio Pump. Then I notice one more class – Watercolor Painting: Explore new hidden or forgotten talents. A two-hour class that offers you the opportunity to express your feelings through simple brushstrokes.

Although I can barely draw stick figures and I’m used to lifting weights, not a paintbrush, I can’t do another curl or sun salute, so I sign up. John Leone, the teacher, greets me in the sun-filled art studio. I am perfectly happy with my choice until I see I’m the only person there – probably because it is so beautiful outside. Trying not to look as nervous as I feel, I take a seat in front of a piece of thick white paper taped onto a Masonite board. The teacher must have read my thoughts because he says, “There’s no pressure here. Relax. You’re going to love your watercolor so much that you’ll take it home and frame it.” It’s more likely that I’ll burn it, I think to myself. He must know what I’m thinking because he says, “It’s only paint and paper. It’s not like skydiving. If you don’t succeed, you can start over.”

Propped up in front of me is a completed watercolor depicting three yellow birch trees with a field and winding stream. “This is what we’re going to paint,” John says. Talk about feeling intimidated. Why can’t we start with something simple like an orange?

“Lets start by taping down three pieces for the tree trunks, which we’ll paint last because there’s white in them.” I watch him smooth down the masking tape on his paper and copy exactly what he does. All I have to do is follow exactly what he does — kind of like paint by number. This should be easy.

“First,” he says, “we’ll draw in the horizon.” I imitate the line he draws in pencil, then sketch the big rock, and finally draw in the winding stream. My rock looks more like a chimney, but he says I can erase it and do it again.

“Okay, now we’ll paint in the sky. He shows me how to mix the paint. I paint with light blue. “And now, the clouds.” He crumples up a paper towel and blots it against the blue sky creating a perfect white puffy cloud. I do the same thing and it really looks like a cloud! I feel like Van Gogh and make more and more clouds. I love this – it’s so easy! Why does everyone say watercolor painting is hard? “Okay, now paint in the trees in the background,” he says. “We’ll start with this green, and mix it a little with this color.” His tree leaves look perfect. I’m so afraid I’ll make a mistake, I freeze.

Just do it, I tell myself, my hand shaking because I know I’m about to ruin the painting. I very slowly dab in clumps of green for the leaves. But they look like leaves – not clumps. Again, I love this. John looks over at my painting. “Good,” he says. That gives me the confidence to switch to the darker green for shadows. I look out the window at the yellow bark trees, obviously the same ones we’re painting. I’ve never before looked so long at leaves. There are at least four or five different shades of green, and each one looks a little different. I suddenly realized I was looking at everything in a whole new way. Painting, too, is exercise, I think. It’s a workout of the senses.

I paint in the field, mixing the colors exactly like John. This is much easier than trying to paint leaves and I feel more relaxed as I make broad strokes. He adds vertical lines for grasses and I copy him. His lines look like tall grass. Mine look like dark green clumps. Then he etches individual blades by using a plastic stick with a fine point. When I do the same, my green actually looks like grass. My hand stops shaking. I can’t even draw a circle, but here I am making individual blades of grass with nothing more than a plastic point.

My confidence level is now so high that I paint my rock dark brown in bold strokes, but it’s too dark and looks ridiculous. “A two-year-old could have done this better,” I say to John. “I’ve ruined my painting.”

“No you haven’t,” John says “Just blot it with a paper-towel, and that will create a random pattern, exactly the way rocks are.” I blot away and it once again looks like a rock. You never give yourself a chance, I think. You’re much too impatient.

I paint my stream blue and John shows me how to scrape the paper with a razor blade, making it look exactly like glistening sunlight on the water. I’m worried I’ll slice my paper in half, but I don’t, and now my stream, too, glitters. “Now the tree trunks,” he says, pulling off the three pieces of masking tape. My confidence level is back up. I know my painting is going to be excellent. I’ll take it home and show it to my friends, who know I can’t draw a straight line.

“Each tree is different,” he said. “We’ll use three different colors, then blot with the paper towel.” He expertly paints light brown, yellowish brown and dark yellow onto his tree trunks, turning them into real bark. My paint is spilling off the trunk into the field and sky. My tree trunks look like a lava flow. “I ruined it,” I say, ready to crumple up my painting and throw it away.

“No you didn’t.” He dabs away at my tree trunks with a paper towel. “That’s all you have to do. And that’s the best thing about watercolor painting – that you can mess something up and always fix it before it dries.”

I dab away, then add some more color. My trunks begin to look good again. What is the matter with you? I ask myself. Why do you always jump to the worst possible conclusion? Have a little confidence.

I look at my finished painting and can barely believe it – I love it, even though I doubted myself so many times during the process. Talk about a workout — I sweated buckets the entire class, used as much focus and concentration scraping paint away as I do when I’m pushing my running pace or trying to do another set of squats, and like my other exercise classes, I walk away a little taller, stronger, and with a huge grin.

Margie Goldsmith is an award-winning writer who has been to 115 countries and written about them all for such publications as O the Oprah Magazine and Parade. While she liked her watercolor painting enough to frame it, she doesn’t plan to trade in her keyboard for an easel.

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