I've been wanting to try out Bob Ross-style landscape painting for years, but never got around to it for various reasons (impostor syndrome, executive dysfunction, neurodivergence in general). and then last year I wound up in a mental health crisis service unit for a week, and one morning, our group therapy was an art therapy practice where we each got an 8"x10" canvas board and were told to paint our "safe space."

whenever I close my eyes and try to picture a time and place when I was most at peace, I think of the sort of mountainous lakeside campground that I used to spend my summers as a church youth at, where the air is fresh with pine and recent rainfall and the surface of the lake is disturbed only by an occasional breeze or the ripple of a fish coming up to eat a bug. so I painted the lakeside from the site my family went camping at this year, where I had spent several minutes at the water's edge meditating on the transient nature of ripples in the water. like I mentioned, it's the first landscape I've ever painted, but I've watched so many episodes of The Joy of Painting that I felt myself channeling the man himself as I laid brush to canvas that morning. I still feel a profound sense of calm when I look at it, and I use it for reference when I'm returning to my "safe space" at the end of trauma therapy each week.

anyway, I'm really fuckin proud of it. personally I think it fucks severely and the next landscape I paint will be even better. I hope y'all enjoy me sharing this with you.