The Lesson of Patience in Dot Art
Dot work is slow by design. I build an image out of thousands upon thousands of tiny points, each one placed by hand. There’s no way to rush it, no shortcut, no clever trick to make it go faster. When I choose this technique, it's on purpose. Even though part of me constantly wants quick progress, instant results, and the satisfaction of something finished, I know that surrendering to the process is where the benefit of this medium lies.
Dot by dot, I’m forced to sit still. To breathe. To stay with the sheet of paper even when it feels like nothing is happening. It’s frustrating at times. The restless voice inside me gets louder, telling me to move, to finish, to see the result already. I haven't come across a better way to train patience.
Because somewhere in the slowness, something shifts. I begin to trust the process. The thousands of tiny decisions add up. What once felt like endless repetition becomes quiet rhythm. The picture slowly appears. Not with a sudden burst, but like something growing, alive, natural.
Dot art teaches me that time is part of the art. That progress doesn’t always feel like progress while you’re in it. And that some of the most beautiful things can only exist because they take time.
CORAL I
Once, there was nothing but blue. Just the quiet sway of the ocean, empty and endless. Then, one tiny coral polyp settled on a stone. It grew, slowly, too slowly for any eye to notice. Another joined. Then another. Years passed, decades, and what had begun as seemingly nothing became a fortress of color, a living city breathing beneath the waves. Made up of thousands upon thousands of small particles that joined to form something new.
This painting follows the same path. It began with a single dot, then another, and another, each one a small decision, a quiet gesture. No single mark claims the spotlight, yet together they shape something whole, something alive with patience and time.
It is the story of how beauty grows not in leaps, but in persistence. How what seems still is always becoming. How the lesson of patience teaches us that given care, the smallest acts can build new worlds.
