Author: Alean “@TopModelWithBottles” Elston

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Recently I was afforded the opportunity to work with a new client for their company’s promotion for Alexis Bittar at Neiman Marcus and it was pretty interesting. It was for a company called PaintAPic.com and what they offer is a custom paint by number painting that you complete based on any photo that you submit. So what happens is you send them a picture, it could be a picture of your dog, a picture of you, a picture of whatever! and they flatten out that picture and turn it into a paint by number picture. With your picture they also send you the paint you need to complete the artwork and the canvas &  paint brushes so you’ll have everything you need to complete your art project.

(But back to the point of this blog post, lol) For this particular promotion we were asked to do a paint by number version of Alexis’s latest advertisement for his FINE collection pictured here:

Before we started to paint I wasn’t told exactly what it was that we were going to be painting. To see the Paint-A-Pic before its completed, I thought it was mountains and rivers and all that jazz. Basically I thought we were going to be painting a picture of a landscape. See the picture below and tell me its not a mountain scene! lol:

Ok so if you don’t think its a mountain scene its okay, I see it as that because that’s how it appeared to me upon my first sight of the work ahead, its just my perception. As we started to paint, I still couldn’t see how this was going to become a version of the ad, but we pressed on, section by section. As we continued on in our work, people were walking by wondering what it was we were working so hard on. My job was supposed to be paint the picture and try to get others involved in painting it with us and talk about the product. For me it was a bit difficult, ONLY because doing this painting in a high traffic area caused me to tune everything out and focus. That’s rare for me! lol I was so into this painting I missed the chance to engage with potential consumers. eventually I forced myself to multitask and draw people in but my main thought was, I gotta finish this I want to see how this is all going to look completed. But like all work that has to be done, this painting was taking more time than I thought. We painted and painted and being that I was so close on the work I still didn’t see what it was supposed to be, but everyone that walked by could see it.

Why?

Because they were looking at it from a different perspective. Because they were able to see it from a distance, they could see that all the small pieces we were painting and the time an energy and effort we were putting into the painting, was building itself into becoming a great piece of art work.

See where I’m going with this? Check out this picture of the painting mid-way through:

It was in the moments after the painting was finished, when I stepped back and looked at the finished product, I realized how much this painting experience is a story of my life. I take on projects knowing that there is going to be a lot of work involved and often times as I get a little deep into a project, especially when its taking a long time, I can get a little frustrated wondering if this is going to turn out as great as I originally thought it could be. I have people that see what I’m working on and I get compliments or people that want to be a part of what I’m working on, and personally sometimes I cant see exactly what or how things are going to turn out, even  though I know it is going to be great in the end, because I’m too busy focusing on what i’m doing up close and not in the scheme of the big picture. And even though I know things will come together if I stick with it and do the little things in order to build it into bigger things in time, I have to learn that there are little steps in order to get to the big vision. With this experience though I have learned that in order for me to keep focus on the big picture at hand and not get discouraged or frustrated or any other emotions that don’t help the work/project positively, time to time while I work on things I need to step back and see that the little things that I have been doing are shaping to be a vision of success that can only be obtained if I complete the smaller components that make it all come together.

And with that Success is obtained through your perception of progress through time.

Thanks for checking out a bit of whats in my mind 🙂

Oh yea, here’s a finished picture of the paining:

Pretty cool right?!

Be sure to check out PaintaPic.com to get your custom paint by number canvas and Neiman Marcus for the latest Alexis Bittar Jewlery. Tag me in your instagram pic if you get either, I’d love to see it. Follow me on IG – @completebeauty