Just Be You-Chapter 13
Chapter 13 —Just Be You
"Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we should be and embracing who we are." — Brené Brown
This painting took two years to finish.
Not because it was technically impossible. Because it wasn’t time. I was reaching for some invisible standard I couldn’t even see or name..so it got put away for a long time. After a couple of years it was calling to me, and with what I had already done, I decided to try and name it, I had nothing.
Still struggling,I threw my hands up in the air and thought ,forget it…just do what makes you happy, how you paint, just have fun. And I understood immediately where it needed to go.
I stopped trying to control it. Stopped reaching for something different. I just picked up my brush and painted like myself.
And Just Be You was born.
I let the cosmos dance and the daisies scatter and the dandelion puffs float wherever they wanted. And the lilies. They didn't need any help from me. They were just magnificent.
Four magnificent stargazer lilies command this 36×36 canvas with breathtaking confidence — deep burgundy rose, their golden stamens glowing, their swept-back petals dramatic and unapologetic. Around them everything plays — pink cosmos dancing on slender stems, soft tulips just opening, purple and lavender cosmos swaying freely, alstroemeria in warm coral, thistle heads adding texture and wildness. A carpet of white daisies, fluffy dandelion puffs, and tiny blue-centered wildflowers covers the lower canvas like the garden threw itself a celebration. Orange and amber grasses add warmth between the stems. And above it all — a luminous sky of soft teal and periwinkle blue with gentle vertical drips, like a clear day after a long storm.
Like the weather finally broke.
Like the last chapter of a story that earned its ending.
The whole collection has been about learning. Not just technically, but emotionally too. Without my knowledge, every painting taught me something the next one needed, on the canvas and in my life. Two plus years of growing into the painter I was becoming, and healing in a way that was organic, but also deliberate, in that I made myself feel it, sit with it, and experience it, like never before. It wasn’t easy, but, bittersweet and definitely worth the wait.
And it could only have been painted last. I needed every single painting before it — every struggle, every lesson, every layer, every lotus blooming in mud, every Henry sitting still in his secret sanctuary, every invisible coat finally laid down — to get here.
After the finding beauty and honoring the truth and starting to heal and embracing who she was and growing and being brave enough and the friends who showed up and the in between and the acceptance, came the exhale, the rising strong, and the just be you.
Like herself. As herself. For herself.
Just you. Exactly as you are. Wild and tender and playful and bold and still learning and completely, perfectly enough.
The lilies didn't need permission to be magnificent.
Neither did she.
Neither do you. 💜
The garden is open. You are welcome here. 💜
Just Be You is available as an original painting, museum-quality Fine Art Paper Giclee Print, a Canvas Giclee Print, Fine Art Card/Mini Prints on archival paper, and Gifts
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Ms. Laura Jones Paints | Creatively Beautiful