The World I Stepped Into When Mine Became Too Heavy

I didn’t set out to paint whimsy. I think… I set out to find somewhere softer to land.

There was a time when the world felt too heavy to stay in. Not just sad, but dim. Like the colour had drained out of things I used to love. Like everything familiar had shifted just slightly out of reach. And I remember thinking: I need somewhere else to go. Not to escape. Just… to breathe.

And without fully realizing it, I stepped into another world. The world of whimsy.

A world where light lingers. Where gold catches and holds onto it. Where colours don’t fade — they glow. A world that feels like a quiet fairytale… soft around the edges, and a little untouched by time.

In that place, nothing is really lost. The ones we love don’t disappear. They soften into the landscape. They settle into petals, into light, into the hush between moments. They wait there. And when I paint, I can find them again.

I can hold them.
I can sit with them.
I can imagine them whole, happy, free of pain — just as they always should have been.

A big part of finding my way into that world came through the amazing art teacher Tamara Laporte and her world of whimsical creations. There’s something about the way she teaches that feels like stepping through a hidden doorway. Not into perfection, but into wonder.

She makes space for play.
For curiosity.
For emotion to move freely without needing to be explained.

And for someone carrying grief, that kind of space feels like a gift. Because I didn’t need to be “good.” I just needed somewhere my heart could go.

Over time, this way of painting became more than a momentary escape. It became the place I return to when the world feels too sharp. A place where grief doesn’t disappear…
but it softens. Where love doesn’t feel interrupted. Where the story doesn’t end — it simply changes form.

Each painting slowly became its own little world. A world created for one soul. A place where a beloved angel could still exist — held, seen, remembered in colour and light. Not as they were at the end, but as they are in love.

And sometimes, I step into those worlds for others, too. To create a space where their angel can live again — whether they are deeply missed, or still curled beside them, warm and breathing. 

A place where their story continues…
just a little differently.
I step into the world of whimsies not because everything is light and easy, but because sometimes, I need it to be.

And maybe that’s what whimsy really is.
Not make-believe.
But a quiet, gentle remembering…
of a world where love never had to leave.

Featured Whimsy: The Whimsy Meninas

Some paintings stay with you long before you ever pick up a brush. For me, one of those has always been Las Meninas.

It’s one of the most studied and talked-about paintings in art history — a royal court scene painted in the 1600s that feels surprisingly alive and complex even today. The way the figures interact, the sense of presence, the mystery of who is looking at whom… it’s always felt a little magical in its own quiet way.

I’ve always been drawn to it. Not just because of its history, but because it feels like more than a painting. It feels like a moment you’ve stepped into. So at some point, I started wondering…

What would this look like in my whimsy world?
That question became The Whimsy Meninas.

I kept the spirit of the original — the gathering, the sense of being inside a shared space — but everything else slowly shifted. The figures softened. The energy changed. The structure opened up. And the scene became something warmer, more playful, and a little more alive in a different way.

In this version, the room feels less formal… and more like a living story.
The characters aren’t posed — they’re simply there, each holding their own quiet presence. There’s colour, movement, and a sense that something gentle is unfolding rather than being observed.

This is one of the things I love most about working in this style.
It gives me the freedom to take something I’ve admired for years, and reimagine it in a way that feels personal, emotional, and full of life.

The Whimsy Meninas is now available as both an original painting and fine art prints in my shop.

What began as a quiet step into this whimsical magical world slowly turned into an ever growing collection of paintings — each one holding a small doorway back to that place. If you feel called to wander through them, the whimsy collection is waiting below.