When you stop and smell the roses, you start to view the world in a different way.
A quick google will offer you lots of ways to enjoy “simple pleasures” - small, accessible, and often free moments that bring joy, comfort, or calm to everyday life.
I’m sure these little things that spark joy are intrinsic to our existence, going back millennia. The sound of rain = drinking water and helping food grow, cooking a healthy meal = warmth, energy and a full belly, watching a sunrise = sign of surviving the perilous night..
But the current societal expectation to be on the go all the time, from the minute we rise to the moment our head hits the pillow 15 hours later, means we have sacrificed the experience of reality and living in the present.
I won’t pretend that I wake up with intention every day and start my morning slowly with a matcha latte and some yoga poses. I’m with the majority I’m sure, as I sit up startled, eyes half shut, scrabbling about the bedcovers trying to switch off my damn phone alarm that’s been reminding me to wake up for the eleventieth time!
But I do enjoy visual mediations; looking for “glimmers”.
Glimmers are those teeny, tiny, little joys that you wouldn’t notice if you didn’t stop to look for them. They’re simple, unassuming, smile instigators. They’re “huh, would you look at that?” hands-on-hips-stop-you-in-your-tracks-igators.
Like the pattern ice makes as it crawls up the car windscreen or a little flower’s tenacity in a hostile environment.
And I like to incorporate them in to my art.
As I work through the many layers of my paintings, I take time to pause and reflect. Does this little splodge of paint make me happy? If it does, I try and keep it. If it doesn’t, well, thankfully you can make all the mistakes you want with acrylic - it’s very forgiving 😁
I didn’t grow up watching Bob Ross but I do love his view of misplaced brushstrokes as “happy little accidents”. They become a part of the painting in their own right.
Sometimes I will add little surprise elements which you only see on closer inspection; not all are intentional, sometimes they just evolve too, like the little night sky in my painting, Viola.
If you give yourself permission to slow down, next time you’re staring at a painting, see if there are any parts that speak to you. You could try looking up at the clouds to see if you can spot something in them or look for little bits of beauty on your next walk outdoors. When you do this repeatedly, your eyes will naturally be drawn to those glimmers all around you and those little joys will make your heart sing!
