It’s been years since I’ve played around with the acrylic paints that litter my shelves, the canvases stacked and covered in the corners or rolled up waiting for a frame I can stretch them across. If I used a paintbrush, it was for watercolor or Modpodge. This weekend, though, I broke out the paints seriously for the first time in years and had a go.

The results amazed me. I think there’s this prevailing idea that if you don’t use it, you lose it: that our skills deteriorate like insider muscles. That wasn’t the case at all, though. My hands remembered. I recalled which colors worked best together from over 20 years of practice and training. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. I made five paintings this weekend.

In the past, I tried to replicate realism. I agonized over a blade of grass out of place. Now, abstract expressionism calls me.

For the first three me in years, I’m excited to paint. There are no due dates like there were in art school. Just me, the canvas, and the paint.

I’m looking forward to seeing if these get a positive reception. Now that I have them — and after they’ve dried 72 hours, then glazed, then glazed again — I have to figure out how to photograph them well so I can make prints. I keep staring at them, though. They’re hypnotic. I hope you think so too.