Manuela,
Thank you so much for letting me paint you, it was such an honor. Below is a translation of the painting. But you should know, that much like a language translation, somethings just get lost, or can only be expressed adequately in one language. Does that make sense? Also, usually, the more I look at a painting, the more I see. While it is all there right from the beginning, sometimes it takes a while to see everything**.
But here it goes:
We'll start from the outside and look in. Start with the edges. Like when two people meet, though we are always the same person, each person we meet notices different things about us.
The bottom part that looks a bit like watermelon, that represents what I saw as a childlike glee in you. Like when you were talking about what you like about criminal psychology. Its childlike because of how excited you are about it, the way a child is excited about a fictional character, the wonder, mystery and awe. Its beautiful that you can think this way about parts of society that many people write off.
The upper right balloon of color is both a hot air ballon and a curtain to a window. It is also the hair of a woman (you). The purple under these colors is her body, the yellow her legs, the blue her hands. You are both the woman besides the window and the viewer of the picture. (In the way in a dream you are in the dream and you know you are dreaming.)
The very middle dark blue is also water that we see through a window, above it a passionate mountain with blue skies. This crimson passion mountain is your unknown, you know its out there, but it's far away.
The bottom right corner is a tray. This tray holds things I can't say right now, because those details we didn't discuss, but they are specific. If you look under the tray you see two and half rings, one is solid purple, one is blue in the middle and one is fading out. The blue is defined, your confidence and calm demeanor. The purple ring is unfinished, both as a painting and I think you have yet to figure it out too, but you're almost there; in a month or so you would know what color is supposed to go there. The faded ring is your future, the outline is there, but you're unclear. You're very clear on your love, happiness, and pizazz: how to get there, create it for yourself, and what makes you, you. (Very cool in my book, and impressive. A lot of people haven’t figured this out until much later in life.)
The upper right is filled with passion, healing, and some of your favorites. These favorites and scars are things we didn't discuss, but are clearly there. I'd say your grandmother is most present there, but she is also kind of everywhere. But your family sits there.
Over all, this painting says you are a dreamy person, you're vibrant, and you harness your energy and wield it for good; while you have mastered a lot in your life, you look out into the world and see what else is out there. You wonder (lavenders), you're passionately (reds) optimistic (yellows), grounded (dark greens), and still manage to have fun (teal, lime green, light blue, pinks).
**You ask quite a few questions while I was painting and I know I didn't answer all of them - when I'm painting I can't think directly about the painting, I need to be distracted a bit so that it is all intuition. The thinking and processing can't happen until it's over. So now that I've said that, if you have any further questions, or would like to ask something again, please don't hesitate to reach out.
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