When art sears its way across your heart

Collaborative art journaling with my sister

When I put together my travel art kit for my trip to my childhood home last month, I was thinking mainly of painting with my 4-year old niece. What I didn’t anticipate was painting with my sister, and how seeing our marks together on the page would fill my heart with an indescribable joy every time I look at them.

My sister isn’t much of a painter, you see. Most of her “art” {I use that term very loosely} is limited to setting up activities for her daughter, making simple drawings for her to color, or occasionally painting a little with her.

When she picked up my brushes and paint, she approached the page with childlike delight. She had no outcome in mind other than having a little fun with the art supplies.

“What should I do?” she asked me, while she picked up the brightest purple, pink and red paint tubes, her color choices seemingly influenced by her daughter’s favorite colors.

We were doing vegetable stamping that day, which is fun no matter how old you are. I gave her a quick demo, and she immediately started stamping, a big grin slowly spreading across her face.

“Oooh, this is so much fun!” she said, and immediately picked up a brush and started swiping some deep plum paint on the page. Se had to run off and attend to her little 4-month old soon after, but she wanted to see what I would make out of her initial marks. And our very first collaborative painting was born!

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I wanted to keep most of her marks in this piece, so my first move was to add some overall color to the page. I decided to add a swipe of yellow across her plum paint marks, which looked to me like a cluster of buildings. I turned her okra stamping into flowers, and then colored the skyline in with a phthalo blue. A bit of mark making in blue and gold and loosely sketched in lines with black ink and a dip pen completed this piece.

She had time for just one more short painting session towards the end of our trip, so it was somewhat bittersweet to be creating together. She was packing up to head back to the US, I was getting ready to head back home to New Delhi, but those shared moments of creativity transported us back to our childhood, and to memories of all the games we used to play together.

I finished the page she was working on once I returned home; this one more of a cohesive mix between her marks and mine. I can see some of the marks she made — the purple swipes, the hints of red and that bold crosshatch made with the catalyst wedge. But our marks swirl and mix together, like our shared memories and stories from when we were younger.

Having these pages in my art journal, my sister’s marks mixed in with mine, is a special kind of treasure, almost like a link between our younger and older selves.

That’s the magic of art — the way it creates bridges between time and place and people; the treasured keepsake that may never grace gallery walls, but sears its way across our hearts, serving as a constant reminder that we were here, together, sharing these moments of creativity and joy; reminiscing over old stories and making new ones.

Have you ever painted with your siblings or the young ones in your family? Do tell me in the comments or by replying to this e-mail. I love hearing from you!

Pair this post with:

🎨 Painting with children

🧡 Love what you love, unapologetically — a lesson I learnt from my 3-year old niece

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