The Role of Story in Art

The Photo That Fell Flat

Have you ever stood in awe before a beautiful landscape, snapped a photo, and felt it just didn’t capture the magic of the moment? Maybe instead, the photo is of a beloved pet, but the photograph falls short of the extraordinary love that your pet brings into your life. Photography and representational art is an essential art form that shines in the act of relaying the facts of a scene at a specific time and place. The flip side to that coin is that it does not always exceed in capturing the story of the moment, and that story is the key missing ingredient in moments where the art or memory are falling flat of the real experience.

In memory, when we recall something—like a beautiful landscape or a beloved pet—we don’t just remember what we saw (trees, sky, light—fur, cuddles, drool), we remember how it felt: who we were with, the temperature of the air, what was going on in our life, what it meant to us. The emotional and contextual layer is what makes a moment memorable. It’s not just visual, it’s story-based.

In art, a painting without a story might be technically perfect, but it can feel flat or disconnected. When a piece is rooted in story—emotion, intention, or personal meaning, it becomes more than just relaying the scene on paper. Story invites the viewer to feel, not just look. It creates space for connection between the artist and viewer, or the viewer and themselves. When a photo “doesn’t live up to the real thing,” it’s often because it lacks the lived, emotional story behind the moment. When a painting does move us, it’s often because we can sense a story, whether it’s about the artist’s process or something it sparks within us.

From Scene to Story — Behind The Painting

I have always gravitated toward bright and unrealistic colors. While envisioning myself becoming a professional photographer at 14 years old, I would walk around my neighborhood taking photos, afterwards excitedly bringing the camera home to plug into my family’s old desktop computer. I would then proceed to edit the colors and textures to within in an inch of their inanimate lives. While my style, taste, and chosen art medium may have evolved, I am pleasantly surprised to find this connection to my 14-year-old self all these years later.

My intention when I set out to illustrate a scene is to interpret color, character, texture, and story without following my source photo too religiously—to create that magic we experience in real life but on paper. This shift in mindset is represented for me by moving away from attempting to duplicate a photograph exactly (or rather—attempting to duplicate a memory or connection), and instead actively and intentionally moving toward the imaginative process of using the photo as an inspirational starting point in telling a story through my own intuition.

I am still learning, however, that I need to let go of expectations, let the colors lead, and trust the process. I became less sure and more sure and less sure again with each layer added throughout the process of painting this piece. I went to bed one night frustrated and discouraged, only to wake up the next morning to be pleasantly surprised and say to myself “oh! I’m almost done!” It became less about the scene itself, and more about trusting myself to find the correct answers with each layer added.

Art Abstraction as a Mirror

One of the most interesting aspects of abstract art is its refusal to dictate exactly what the viewer should see. As mentioned previously, representational art shows us a specific scene or subject. Abstract art, on the other hand, leaves room for the imagination, emotions, and memories of the viewer to enter the frame. The rolling texture might remind one person of the hills behind their childhood home, while another might see the feeling of freedom or restlessness. Shifting colors might evoke a sunset, season, or even a state of mind. In this way, abstract art becomes deeply personal not only for the artist, but for everyone who experiences it.

Color and texture do the heavy lifting here—without the anchor of literal details or real-life colors, the viewer is invited to tune into a different kind of recognition: an emotional one. A warm yellow might feel nostalgic; a cool blue might evoke calming or lonely feelings; a hot pink background underneath it all might be slightly jarring and unexpected; scribbles representing elements of nature become fun little details to be discovered. The artwork becomes a quiet collaboration between the intention of the artist and the perception of the viewer, and invites us to see what we need to see—a reflection of ourselves, an important connection in our lives, or maybe just a big, joyful burst of color.

Learning to Trust the Process

One of the lessons I’ve learned through painting and illustration is that trusting yourself is part of the story. To take that one (or a few) step(s) deeper: building an art business is a remarkable journey of self discovery.

When I first started, I had an idea in mind: a color palette, a landscape, a feeling I wanted to capture. But as the painting evolved, so did my relationship to it. Some days I added layers with confidence; other days, I squelched time away with my hesitation, second-guessing every mark. I’d love to say the process was smooth and intuitive, but the truth is, it was full of clarity, doubt, revision, repeat. That’s what makes it meaningful, though: the growth and discovery that happens by pushing through the doubt.

This painting became a reflection of how growth actually happens: not in a straight line, but in spirals. You try something, sit with it, change your mind, paint over it, feel frustrated, walk away—only to come back the next day, and think: wow, I think I’m almost there. I realized that even the “messy” layers—the ones I didn’t love, the "mistakes"—were necessary to get to where I am now, and I think that is a beautiful metaphor my art business and for life in general. Each layer becomes part of the story—even the uncertain strokes, and even the ones that get buried.

By the time the painting was complete, I realized that it wasn’t just a landscape anymore: it was a record of my thoughts, my hesitations, my small victories, and my willingness to keep going. That made it feel like something more than a picture—it made it a story.

If you’re on your own creative journey—whether you’re painting, writing, parenting, healing, or starting the process of learning a brand new, fancy and scary skill—I hope you’ll remember that the goal isn’t perfection. It’s presence. The process is the story. 

Thanks for being here while I make something that feels like home—and if you’re looking at your own favorite piece of art right now, I’d love to know: what story does it tell you?