Time Painted: April 2007
Ah oil painting, how I hate thee.
I took a painting class in 2007, which focused on that classic medium of painting: oil. I had been (hesitantly) looking forward to it, since I thought I might be good at it.
And I am. I get the flow of working with oil quite naturally, and have created some beautiful oil paintings. Unfortunately, I can’t stand it.
I’m not sure exactly what it is. Some of it might be working with toxic materials. Turpentine, used to thin the paint, is not exactly a nice material. Some of it just might be my natural aversion to oil-based media, which keeps leaving an odd feeling of greasiness on my skin when I work with it (I can’t stand oil pastels either). Some of it may have been the teacher, who, while a fairly decent teacher, was one of the rare people who trigger my social phobia very easily through no fault of their own.
I left a few oil painting classes suppressing tears. I even had a breakdown near the end of this class, after the teacher tried getting me to mix together two colors that really weren’t looking good mixed together, at least not to me. I had to leave that class early, and was actually crying then.
I’ve got an odd relationship with tears. You see, one of my social phobia’s primary defense mechanisms is to trigger tears when it gets going. So there I am, trying to suppress my social phobia when it starts rearing its head, and tears start pouring out. It’s very awkward, and I’m usually grinning like the madwoman I am trying to stop them while explaining to whomever I’m speaking with that no, they didn’t make me cry, it’s my social phobia, they don’t have to feel bad, really, it’s fine.
Somehow in all this, I managed to stop my tendencies to cry for other situations. I tend not to cry when sad, or angry, or anything but frustrated. I recently successfully completed a “No Cry” Challenge, with some rather heart-rending videos. Give it a try, if you dare. Apparently, I don’t have a soul or something, though the Homeward Bound clip in there got my eyes a little wet, so maybe I just have a tiny soul. :3
I’ve got fairly weak emotions overall, though my positive emotions are stronger than my negative. I very rarely get angry. As in, once or twice in my life. Most of the time, I’m too good at seeing both sides of the issue to get defensive about my position, and the rest of the time, my natural instinct is to withdraw rather than enter a rage. At least this does mean I’m one of those who has a clear head when things start happening too fast, and I can take charge in situations like that if needed. Not that I’ve really been in too many situations like that.
But enough about emotions. More avocados!
I like avocados. They’re delicious, and I thought (correctly) that they would make a lovely still life painting. I did have to paint half of this from memory and referencing what I’d already painted, since I couldn’t afford to buy new avocados each painting day. These days, I eat avocados nearly every day (which is awesome).
This painting is hanging in one of our bathrooms, which is painted a lovely harvest orange color. The painting goes so well with the colors of that room that you’d think it was made for it. It’s the best thing that came out of that oil painting class, by far.
