Hobby: Painting
Cost: Around $10 to $20 to start
Time Required: Completely up to you
I never used to enjoy painting because I was terrible at it. When I was in the hospital, it was one of the activities available so I gave it a shot. The result was that I’m still terrible at it but I enjoy it quite a bit. At home, J and I share the painting supplies and almost all of them were found at the dollar store.
A great thing about painting is that you can do whatever you want. Want to paint nothing but circles on a piece of paper? Sure, go nuts. Want to paint a little wooden decorative box? You can do that. Want to sit there, very carefully painting something you’ve got in your head? Have fun! Nobody has the right to tell you if you’re right or wrong – it’s all up to you.
Here are a few things I’ve painted:
Mountains. I followed along with an episode of “The Joy of Painting” for this one.
A dock jutting out into the sea.
This was a “paint inside the lines” canvas that was pretty fun to do.
A small decorative box that I painted for J.
A wooden butterfly cutout that I tried to make look like a monarch. I did this while I was in the hospital.
There’s all kinds of stuff you can do, and if you’re not feeling well and are looking for something that’ll burn off an hour or two, painting is a great choice.
Here’s what you need to get started:
- A pack of different-sized brushes,
- A couple of foam brushes of different sizes
- Some paint (I recommend inexpensive acrylic or watercolour paints),
- A place to paint on that you can easily clean or it’s not the end of the world if it gets dirty,
- A big jug of water for rinsing,
- Something you can mix paints on (if you want to make other colours), and
- Something to paint on, whether it’s paper, cardboard, canvas, wood… lots of options here.
All of this should be available at your local dollar or discount store for very little.
The only thing I don’t like about painting is the cleanup, but if you’re using acrylic or watercolour paints it’s usually not too bad. Oil paints, however, are pretty tough to clean up without the proper solvent.
I find painting to be fun and relaxing, even if it doesn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. For all of the paintings I listed in this post, there are five or ten that didn’t work out so I just started doodling on them. Don’t take it too seriously and have fun!
Stay safe!