Chinese 120
Taoism
2 October 2003

The Tao in Me

    From what I’ve been told, I’ve loved drawing and the arts since I was five years old, maybe even younger. When I was six I decided that when I was to grow up, I would be a cartoonist. I was not able to, nor am I able to now, draw realistically, and therefore I did not enjoy it (or want anything to do with it.) Every spare piece of paper was scribbled on with whimsical characters I invented and funny looking dogs and animals. As I grew older and more mature, the images grew as well. They are still funny looking, but a little better drawn than before.
  About four years ago I discovered painting. It was difficult to do because it was not erasable, but I worked on it. Working with the paint I found that I could achieve different textures and shades. I could cover large areas with a single stroke and I could blend colors with ease. My once favorite past time of drawing had begun to fade in to a passion for paint. Throughout these years I’ve begun to obtain my own style of painting. I am still working on a style I can call my own, but for now I think I am at a good stage.
    I enjoy painting during my free time. When I am stressed, I can sit down with a brush and canvas and my worries get taken away. I get sucked in to the palette as I mix colors. Multiple shades of color get blended in to one as I mix them. I watch the swirls of color slowly dissipate as they become one unified form. Using long strokes I smooth out the colors and create shapes and scenes. I work to smooth out harsh lines and fine tune them until everything flows in a smooth consecutive piece. While working, the sun goes up and before I am done I look up to notice the sun has faded and the lights have been turned on. The whole world seems to fade away when I paint and I become one with time. When I let myself get absorbed by the aspect of painting, time goes by in an instant. I snap out of my trance to step back and see what I have created. Other times when I am not in the mood to paint, the time goes by slowly and I feel as if nothing is right. No matter what I do the paint will not work with me and all of the forms are wrong. I need to relax my mind and let it go to be able to paint freely.
    I guess one can say that painting is the Tao in me. It lets me relax and floooow. I release myself from the busy world of structure and rules and enter the world where there are no solid boundaries or lines. Nothing stands in my way, except maybe the end of the canvas, as I express my thoughts visually. I become one and it is the way. Oops. I just tried to explain the Tao in writing…

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