Satisfaction in Creating Something

Not too long ago i watched a YouTube video about Karl Marx talking about productivity. Productivity in westernized industrial world has become so efficient and segregated, that employee doesn't need to be a craftman or expert to build things. Like a mass produced furniture which has been broken down into parts and pieces; each workers in the production line will only need to know the shape and size of the part they need to cut out or mold. Like production line of car assembly factory, every worker only in charge of assembling specific parts of the car. No one knows how to build a chair and no one knows how to build a car.  

I can still remember first time i learnt computer programming and wrote a piece of code, it was a very simple programming; to draw a triangle using count down iterations comprise of asterisk characters (*). I can still remember the joy of that simple creation until today. Now day i write pieces of programming code here and there, but never a standalone application like building a web site from scratch or mobile app. However, being able to come out with something that works still could make one feels somewhat satisfied. I come to realize building thing is crucial to achieve satisfaction and if you build thing at work and it takes shape, you will most likely feel satisfied. Most people just don't feel satisfied at work anymore, because the bits and pieces of task accomplished don't give them the sense of contribution to the greater good. They missed out the overall picture, this is the dilemma of modernized economy and society. 

Sometimes i sit in my living room and stare at the painting i bought during vacation in Bali. It's an abstract painting, not an abstraction of anything in particular but brush strokes of shades of orange, yellow, brown and red in horizontal and vertical. There are a few splashes of bright paint and drips as highlight. I don't particularly like that painting when i bought it, but i just needed something on my wall when i moved into my house. It's been on my wall for several years now, it made me think i should have painted my own painting on my wall, so there goes, i started oil painting. And I thought it is quite easy…   

First, I was inspired by a youtuber’s landscape painting, so I started out with one and landed in ocean landscape. This is a sunset scene I attempt to paint from a photograph I saw from Chromecast “screen saver” on my LED tv. I later realized the actual photograph was nowhere this blue and pinkish. The black patch was due to applying too much black paint but I just leave it as is.    

When I travelled to countries like Bali or Vietnam, I always fascinated by abstract painting of village on water. I didn’t get the right bargaining price for those paintings so I didn’t manage to get any from my travel. I painted this without any reference picture but just throw in some warms colors and various colors box shapes as water village houses abstraction. I couldn’t really project the feeling of water village abstraction but it’s okay.    

Walking and hiking through woods and hill is one of my major past time during non-working day, so I painted one as tribute to my experience in the activity.       

As beginner, I’m always thinking about interesting things to paint. One of them was desert landscape. Yes, I was trying to paint an actual desert landscape, but turned out I painted an abstraction of desert instead. Not everything turns out to be the way I wanted.    

The first ocean landscape was some kind of kid’s drawing so I decided to paint another ocean/seaside landscape. The color looks much realistic than the previous one except the painting still look plain and abstract as it lacks details, i’m still thinking about what to add into this painting – some life, trees, building, or other random things, maybe.    

This is one of the painting which is really fun to paint as it is almost totally abstract. I’m not trying to make an exact replica of the famous painting but just try to follow the general mood and colors. After finished this painting I realized the color I used are much brighter, the original painting has a gloomier mood to it and also has dirtier paints which make the colors harder to be identified. With my painting, the color is only straightforward.      

A greatest artist once said; in painting, if you don’t try to improve, you might get worst. So I challenge myself to paint a portrait which in my opinion has higher difficulty level. Although the end painting doesn’t look much like the person from my reference photo nor it looks photo real but I felt satisfied painting this first portrait.   

 I find it more satisfying to paint a portrait that doesn’t look alike than painting a landscape that miss the mark – aim further so if you miss the target, you will still be ahead. Another attempt to paint photo realistic painting (realism) but the color is still off.    

Adding more challenge to myself, instead of just painting faces. This is my most recent painting – the dancer portrait. It is the largest painting I produced so far and It would be the first painting I painted to be hanged on my wall    

As you may or may not realized, this post is also about introducing myself, from the perspective of my experience and view in painting and learning to paint. I used to write fictional stories; very short story I call them snap shot story, stories that capture a flash moment in life like a story you tell from looking at a photograph. I have posted several of my writing here as well, hope to make some contribution to the variety of the content in Steemit.  

If you have reached this far, I thank you for reading this post, which is kind of mundane. Hope you will come back for any future post.