20210624 by DrBeena

We all love Tea time don’t we? What has that got to do with salty accident? Well, be patient one step at a time. Since I was young, I envisaged Tea times. I never knew what surprise my Amma (mom) would spring on us for tea. Tea time was always more exciting than other meal times as it was full of lovely little nibbles. We all love pleasant surprises. Let me now describe my own accidental surprise with salt and my painting.

When I planned to paint Tea time I only had a tea pot, tea cup and two plates of pleasant munchies. As I am still learning, I decided to use salt in the painting as I was taught to use this technique in my art class and it never produced any good result to my chagrin. Hence, I sprinkled some salt and continued with my painting. After sometime I saw what happened and I was in great dismay. I thought ‘oh dear, what a mess I have created’. I decided not to focus on that for the moment as I liked how my tea cup and my little nibbles were turning out. By the way, I decided to paint Asian nibbles as most of us conjure up tea time with cakes, scones and sandwiches. In fact, I was inspired to paint this Tea time from Paul Clark’s tutorial on Tea time with scones and jam. I painted Kueh Salat and Curry puffs (locals here refer to ‘cully pupp’). You can google and see his version.  

Salt is an essential element for our lives. We need the right amount not too much nor too little. The taste of food is taken to a whole new level with salt. Now what is the role that salt plays in art? Just like in food salt does bring out a rather textured look. So, if you look at that vase of flowers, that is where I made my ‘mistake’. Fortunately, I decided to amend that mistake into a vase of flowers. I just loved it after that. Did you like it too?

Then I reflected on that mistake. Many times, when we make mistakes, we are so focused on figuring out how to correct that mistake, we lose sight of the ‘big picture’. I have realized that now. That is the wonderful aspect about aging. We start to look at ‘mistakes’ differently. We tend to even laugh at those silly stuff that we considered as mistakes. Please do not misconstrue as not all mistakes can be measured in the same way. There are some small mistakes that we make and we gave them too much attention. Some of these mistakes can be turned into ‘a vase of flowers.’ When we start to look at life creatively you will be surprised what one can achieve.

Hence, when accidents do happen, hit the pause button. Take a step back and focus on other matters. Sometimes, solutions will come up and other times they do not. That is all part of living. We do not need to fix every broken part. Some of these mistakes add character to life just like the vase of flowers did to my painting. It was an accident and for me it turned out to be beautiful.

Hope to hear your comments and stories or musings on ‘accidents’ in your life that urned out to be beautiful eventually. Till the next time, keep writing everyone.