When My Canvas Has Its Own Plans
- Shweta Kanhai

- Jan 2
- 2 min read

(A Year-End 2025 Reflection)
As the year comes to a close, there’s a gentle invitation in the air, to pause, to notice, and to reflect.
Year endings and New Beginnings don’t feel heavy to me.. they feel honest! They offer space to look back with clarity and gratitude at how things actually unfolded, rather than how we imagined they would.
Just like life, my art has a way of surprising me.
I often approach the canvas with something in mind, a thought, a mood, a quiet intention. But once I begin, something shifts. The brush starts moving beyond planning. Colours begin to speak in ways I hadn’t rehearsed. Layers form, and slowly, a deeper expression rises, one I hadn’t consciously prepared for.
What emerges is rarely what I set out to create. Yet it is always what needed to come through.
Over time, I’ve learned that this isn’t resistance or confusion. It’s revelation. My art doesn’t reject intention, it transforms it. What begins as an idea becomes a dialogue between my inner world and the canvas, between control and surrender.
Standing at the edge of a new year, this feels especially meaningful.
The canvas, like life itself, absorbs everything, the gratitude, the silences, the unspoken prayers, the gentle processing of days. Looking back, I can see how much of this year quietly found its way into my work, even when I wasn’t consciously aware of it.
This pause between years feels like the right moment to honour that truth.
As I step into my next project, I’m choosing to trust the unfolding. To loosen my grip on certainty. To allow expression to lead, even when it surprises me. Because year endings remind us of something important...not everything meaningful needs to be planned.
Some beauty arrives through attention, openness, and trust.
And perhaps that’s the quiet gift this year leaves behind.
I create from a place of listening, where intention meets surrender, and expression is allowed to unfold in its own time.









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