It’s interesting that the author of Painting Happiness, Terry Runyan, spend her 30-year career as an in-house illustrator for Hallmark, which sounds to me like a dream job. But she struggled with her ‘inner critic’ right up to her retirement. She focused on finding a healthier way to approach her art, and over time, her inner critic was replaced by her ‘creative encourager’. This is who leads us through this book.

As I read, I’m finding it hard to feel discouraged or sad about my perception of my talents when every page is an explosion of color, and unexpected shapes and subjects. To my surprise, I was drawn to (pardon the art pun) the section covering characters and faces. But with lots of examples of basic shapes to build on, the process started to become less mysterious and more attainable. Because I’m a fiction writer, I’m going to try to paint some studies of my characters. At the very least, it will be fun, and at the most… well, who knows? I just need to dive in and start painting. And thank you, Terry Runyan, for the encouragement.