Painting with Pain

Painting everyday, all day, for the past 10 yrs has really taken it’s toll on me physically. Whether it is my vision, back, arms, hands, knees, etc…. my commitment to producing as much work as possible is starting to show up on my body. (and there may be a touch of getting older involved too 🙂

At night when I lay down for bed, my hands are in constant motion. I cannot keep them still, they are decompressing from the day of holding brushes and moving. I wake up in the morning and it takes an hour or so for my hands to become loose again after they have tightened up over night from all of the work the previous day.

Part of me thinks 6 months of rest and non-painting would be a good thing. But in reality, since this is my profession and income is based on what I am producing (and I rarely turn down a commissioned piece), it is not in the cards.

Luckily I feel like my product is not suffering from my aches and pains. The work I am producing each day is still very strong and exciting. My drive to paint has never been better and it gets me through the pain.