The Art Class That Helped Me Find Light Again

I almost didn’t take my first art class because I was sure I wasn’t “an artist.”

In 2022, I was barely functioning. Grief had layered itself over every part of my life. Some days I struggled just to get out of bed. Creativity felt like something reserved for other people — people who weren’t carrying so much weight.

One night, while mindlessly scrolling, I froze on an ad for a dragonfly painting class. The shimmer. The bold colours. The gold foil catching the light. I don’t remember deciding to enroll. I just did.

And then I panicked.

“I don’t have talent.”
“I don’t even have supplies.”
“What am I thinking?”

The materials arrived and sat untouched in a box under my bed. I replayed the class videos over and over again, watching the instructor Maria paint with such joy and confidence. Just watching her create felt soothing. But I was convinced I could never do what she was doing.

Until one day, something shifted.

I dipped my brush into a bold purple in my little Koi set and pressed it onto paper.

It was just a blob.

But it felt like a spark.

That tiny mark cracked open a door. Not to perfection. Not to mastery. But to possibility.

After the dragonfly course, I took The Secrets of Lotus class. The pieces you see here was created during that season — a time when I was learning how to hold grief in one hand and colour in the other.

To this day, I still gravitate toward lotus in my paintings.

The lotus rises from murky water and reaches toward light. It blooms anyway.

That symbolism found me when I needed it most.

The techniques I learned in those early classes — layering shimmer, adding gold foil, building texture — didn’t just teach me how to paint. They reminded me that beauty and brightness could exist alongside sorrow.

Art didn’t erase my grief.

But it gave it somewhere to go.

It gave my hands something to do when my heart felt too heavy. It gave me moments of surprise — small flashes of joy when I stepped back and thought, “I made this?”

What began with a hesitant purple brushstroke grew into a body of work rooted in memory, transformation, and light.

Sometimes healing doesn’t arrive as a grand revelation.

Sometimes it begins with a single mark on paper.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

What began with one purple brushstroke eventually grew into a collection of lotus-inspired pieces. If you’d like to explore them, you’ll find them below.