Why I Paint Like I’m Ordering Takeout: More Is More
My motto, some would say, is “Why have less when you could have more?”
My husband usually hears this when we’re ordering takeout - when we’re not sure if we have enough, I’m the one saying, “Well, let’s get the extra garlic knots.” But it applies to a lot of other parts of my life too. The music in my car? Volume 10, windows down.A TV show I’m into? Why watch a few episodes when I could binge the whole thing overnight?
When I paint, it’s the same thing. I fill every single inch of the canvas. Every corner gets color, every space gets a flower, every bit of white canvas feels like an opportunity I can’t resist.
For a long time, I thought this was a problem I needed to fix.
Like a lot of people, I learned to turn myself down somewhere along the way. By the time I was a teenager, I’d heard “Okay, Hailey, calm down” enough times that I started to believe maybe I should.
So for a while, I did. I learned to hold back, to be less.
It wasn’t until I became an art teacher that I found my way back. With kids, that instinct to worry about what you’re going to say goes away. My students could engage me at the same level of excitement about the artwork. I didn’t have to have logic for why bright hot pink and fuchsia felt good - it just did, and that was reason enough. I didn’t have to make apologies.
I started to come into my own again.
When I paint now, I’m allowed to be excited again. I get a rush from dipping my brush in some decadent color and going for it, making bold marks and seeing where that takes me.
Being slow and deliberate has never felt natural to me. When I try to paint that way, it feels like someone keeps hitting pause on a song. Pause, play. Pause, play. It stunts the flow.
People have told me my paintings are “chaotic in the best way.” I know they mean it as a compliment. But it also makes me wonder if there’s something I should be doing differently - if being “too much” is still a problem I haven’t outgrown.
The truth is, the way I paint is about joy. It’s about unleashing yourself from the restraints of trying to play it cool. And yes, sometimes my nervous system tells me to keep going, to fill every inch, even when maybe I shouldn’t. It’s almost a physical need to bring that explosion of color and life to every corner of the canvas.
I’m learning that there’s value in restraint, in negative space, in letting a painting breathe. But I also know that if I lose that sense of joy, that rush of excitement, I don’t want to paint at all.
And if I have to choose, I will always choose more.
If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be this: It’s inevitable that you’re going to want to conform and subdue yourself, and that’s okay. But know that the bright, bold, roll-the-windows-down, turn-the-volume-up, paint-every-inch-of-your-canvas version of yourself is under there. And when you’re ready to come back to her, that’s when you’ll really feel alive again.