Paintings Paint Themselves by Valerie (Valry) Drake

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At least in my dreams they do. Vibrant slashes of brilliant hues dance across the stretched canvas. Big wide paintbrushes dip into soft, buttery mounds of paint on huge pallets and then lift and float to add to the beauty. Sometimes I can actually see the paintings in progress. Other times I only see paintbrushes and paints.

Bright peacock blue on the brush, the brush meets the canvas and gently bends, the bristles curve, the brush moves along the canvas leaving a bold trail behind. And I can smell the paint, the rich aroma of oil paints and mediums, cleaners and varnishes. Then there is the feel of the soft cotton rag in my left hand, open to receive the brush with paint residue still on the bristles, my fingers close around it and wipe the paint off. Feel the dampness of the paint that now stains the rag, the slight bulge of the paint globules now contained in the rag – the rag which becomes a thing of beauty in itself.

I turn the rag in my hand waiting for the next visit from the brush. Then the brush returns to the pallet and dives into a mound of crimson. Sometimes instead of a brush there is a painting knife, its sharp edge scraping across the canvas: scritch, scritch, scritch blending and squishing, scraping and gouging vigorous and decisive.

So many rich sensations. I wake with my brain itching and my fingers twitching. Ah! The joy of being an artist!

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