Why I Stopped Painting

There are boxes of unopened miniatures in my house. They’ve been gathering dust for a while.

Not because I dislike them. Some of them are of Dungeons and Doggos, and they’re absolutely adorable. I’ve not been avoiding them on purpose. Sometimes, I think I avoid them because I remember a little too sharply what they used to mean to me.

The paints are still lined up on Lord Commander Eloth’s fancy new painting desk. Some of them are probably dried up around the lids and unusable. And my little wet palette has certainly dried up. My favourite brushes are still in their cases, a little curled into themselves after being left too long without the dutiful care of brush soap.

For a long time, I told myself I was ‘taking a break’. Life was busy. I was tired. My focus was elsewhere. I’d come back to it eventually, once things had calmed down, once I had more energy, once I’d found that ‘perfect model’ to inspire me, once I felt more like myself again.

But months became a year, and eventually I had to admit something uncomfortable. I hadn’t just stopped painting. I’d stopped recognising the version of me who painted.

And, for a while, that was hard.

Painting, and by extension, art, was never just painting for me.

It was identity.

It was enthusiasm. Ritual. And escape from the drudge. A way of participating in worlds I loved rather than just observing them. It made me feel connected to something larger than the routine repetition of adulthood. There was something comforting about sitting at a desk for hours, focused on colour and detail, while fictional universes hummed quietly in the background of my mind. Who is this miniature? What stories can I make up about him? Did this member of the Blood Guard do anything remarkable, or was he doomed to a meaningless life behind a boltgun?

Painting made me feel like a creative person. Productive, even.

It also gave me a place to put my emotions without having to really explain them.

I think that matters more than people realise.

Creative hobbies are rarely just hobbies. They become containers for identity. We begin to see ourselves through them. Not just ‘someone who paints’ but someone imaginative, engaged, passionate, inspired. Someone still connected to a sense of wonder. Even if my go-to paints were always the same shade of red and lashings of Nuln Oil.

And perhaps that is why losing that avenue of creativity can feel frightening. Because what’s left behind isn’t neutral, it’s a hole. It forces you to confront the possibility that something inside you has gone. Or at least changed.

I spent a long time feeling guilty about it. Trying to rekindle it.

Every time I walked past untouched models, I felt the accusation of the unfinished. I would watch other people painting and think, ‘Why can’t I seem to reconnect with this anymore?’ I tried to force myself back into it, get my models out and organise them into a better painting pile, only to realise that the feeling had gone missing somewhere along the way.

I think part of the problem is that eventually, even the things we love can become tangled up with pressure. Pressure to stay productive. Pressure to remain the version of ourselves that other people recognise. Pressure to keep proving that we are still creative, still passionate, still who we said we were, still ourselves, still, still, still…

At some point, without fully noticing it happen, I stopped associating painting with curiosity and fun, and it became associated with guilt.

And guilt is a terrible creative environment.

There is also the simple truth that adulthood changes you in ways people rarely talk about honestly. Especially as a woman. Especially as someone carrying the invisible labour of home, responsibility, emotional management, routine, care. Your mental space becomes fragmented. Your energy becomes practical. You spend so much time attending to life that eventually everything else becomes background noise. By the evening, my brain often felt consumed by lists, school runs, appointments, chores, and remembering what everyone else needed from me.

I don’t think I stopped painting because I became lazy or uninspired.

I stopped because I was exhausted in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time.

And perhaps because I had outgrown the version of creativity that depended entirely on that sort of escape.

That thought used to make me sad. Now, I am not so sure.

Lately, I have begun wondering if creativity doesn’t disappear so much as transform.

Some things leave in order to make room for others.

The energy that once went into painting miniatures now wants to become something else. Reflection. Fiction. Thought. Meaning. I’m not creatively empty at all. I am standing at a crossroads of identities, grieving one version of myself while another begins to emerge.

I do miss painting sometimes.

Not always the act itself, but the feeling surrounding it. The identity of obsession. The certainty of belonging. The comfort of a clearly defined passion.

But I no longer think that time between shifts means failure.

It’s incubation.

It’s transition.

And sometimes becoming something new requires allowing old versions of yourself to rest without resentment.

I don’t know if I will ever return to painting.

Perhaps I will. Perhaps I won’t.

But I think I am finally learning that creativity is larger than any single medium, and identity can survive the shifting phases of life.

Maybe this isn’t the end of something after all.

Maybe it is the point where the story changes direction.