#ArtWorkLivingChallenge 2021 - Day 5 (The Final Day!)

Well, I made it through the 5-day painting challenge.  My results were...mixed.  I took too much time on
about half of my paintings, but I painted five days in a row, didn't worry about a finished product (for the most part), learned some things, and had fun!

I may redo all my paintings, but in a bigger format, just to see what difference it makes to me, and to see what I've learned about critiquing my own stuff.  Painting such small things (3.5" x 5.5") is limiting in some ways, but freeing in others.

So anyway, this is a great blue heron with a snack.

Same stats as the other Challenge paintings:

Watercolor on Canson XL 140-lb watercolor paper.

The first thing I'm going to change is the paper I use.  I really, really, REALLY like Arches cold press watercolor paper, so I'm going to stick with it instead of trying to use up the wood pulp papers I still have on hand.  I can use them for things other than watercolor.

As a reward for finishing the Challenge, I ordered some tubes of better quality watercolors, so I'll be playing with those.

I've about half finished clearing out a bedroom that I want to use for all my artsy-fartsy-craftsy stuff, and for working jigsaw puzzles (it's a cat-free zone).  It's amazing the stuff that can be shoved into a room.  But I'm far enough along that I think that in about a week I can start moving furniture in and out and around.

Woo hoo!  I'm gonna have a STUDIO!!!  It's almost real!

#ArtWorkLivingChallenge 2021 - Day Four!

Well, today's painting went beyond the time guidelines, but I was enjoying it.

This is the backyard, where my sad sailboat has been languishing for 3 years.  I've leased my dock space, but here it sits.  I THINK we'll be able to get it out this year - FINALLY.

I don't think I've said anything about the SIZE of these little challenge paintings; they're supposed to be SMALL so you can finish them quickly and not get too wound up in the details (I have a problem with that - I tend to keep painting when I should quit!), so I've been working in space just barely larger than a 3x5 index card.  

Anway, here are the stats:

Watercolor
Canson XL 140-lb watercolor paper
3/4" flat brush, 1/2" flat brush, #10 round brush, #6 round brush, #2 round brush, #4 fan brush
40 minutes
3.5" x 5.5"

#ArtWorkLivingChallenge 2021 - Day One! - Embracing Failure!

I joined a short (five-day) painting challenge, and today is the first day.  The goal is to paint a SMALL picture each day in about 15 - 20 minutes.  No more!  The point is not a great picture, but establishing a daily painting habit, and to EMBRACE FAILURE!

Well, I've certainly accomplished THAT today - LOL!

The covered bridge isn't bad, but I somehow got lost in the trees to the left.  Kind of overworked.  Oh well.  It could be worse - I think!

Anyway, for people who care about that kind of thing, this is watercolor on Canson XL 140-lb watercolor paper.  CHEAP watercolor paper (wood pulp, no cotton) that I'm trying to use up before going 100% cotton.

One of the requirements of the challenge is to post the day's picture on your blog, so here it is.  You can expect to be tortured by four more this week.  I hope they won't offend anyone's refined artistic sensibilities too much.  So...  Apologies in advance!

Playing with Paints

My home health care duties are changing - The Knee That Went Bad went to the hospital yesterday and came back with a NEW knee replacement.  No more concrete spacers!  YAY!  I posted about the spacer here.  It's still creepy to think about a hunk of concrete being deliberately put inside your body.

Because That Knee will be more and more mobile over the course of the next two or three months, my time should be a little freed up, and I intend to get back to some of the things I've kind of put on hold.  One of those things is my attempt to learn to paint watercolors.

Some of my attempts have been not terrible and I've even framed them and hung them in the living room.  Then there are the others - hideous, flat things with bad perspective and weird proportions.  Oh, well.

My new Crayola paints!

Here's the synthetic flat and
Crayola squirrel's hair brushes.

I was getting kind of disgusted and then I read an article that flipped a switch - if I wanted to have fun doing something, I needed to PLAY at doing it!

So I put away my artist's watercolors, brushes, and paper, went to Walmart and bought a box of Crayola watercolors, a synthetic flat brush, and some lower-end watercolor paper.  Then I went home and followed along with a YouTube video JUST FOR FUN.  No expectation of a picture good enough for the wall.  And here's the end result...

Even though the colors are kind of too bright for my taste, they're not terrible, and I like how some of the details came out - the weedy field looks weedy, the bushes look bushy, and the trees actually look like trees!  And the rock isn't terrible, either.  I'm not excited about the sky, though, and the one tree is smack in the middle of the picture where it really shouldn't be.  But it was FUN to try painting something with kids' paints.  From now on, I'll try to remember to PLAY more.

I'm Not Very Good at...LOTS of Things!!!

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly. - G. K. Chesterton

Oh, bless you, George!

There are so many things I LOVE to do, but I do them so BADLY.

I run.  Slowly.  Painfully slowly.  I mean, people WALK faster than I run.  And my right leg is knock-kneed (one source of the problems I've been experiencing with that leg - geesh!).  But you know, this morning I got out and chugged up the street, and I passed a small river birch with a mockingbird in it, singing his heart out.  Last week I interrupted an opossum going about his opossum business.  And there are bullfrogs in a retention pond nearer to our house, and when I hear them "harrumphing," I always laugh.  And I may not be fast, but I can go forever.  At least that's how it feels, some days.

I paint watercolors.  From a book.  Nothing original (YET).  But playing with the paint and trying out different techniques is FUN.  And one of my favorite pictures came about because of a mistake!  I was trying to get a misty rain effect using a technique described in a book.  It just would NOT work, and I kept taking a paper towel and wiping down the picture and trying again.  But one time after taking a disgusted swipe at the mess, I looked and said, "Hey!"  I had made misty rain!  Not as instructed, but who am I to look a gift misty rain effect in the mouth?  I left it, and I've gotten a lot of compliments on it!  

I sail.  Lazily.  I almost never use the jib.  It's in GREAT shape!  Oh, I hank it on to the forestay every spring and keep it in its sail cover on the deck, but I almost never let it come out and play.  Fall comes and I unhank it and throw it and the cover into the cabin until spring, when I hank it on again.

I ski.  Again, lazily.  I don't want to be bothered with the effort of skiing a black diamond slope.  I'll do greens and blues, and try to find the longest way down the mountain.  I want to get as much time on my skis as possible for my ride up to the top, and I want to be able to look at the scenery, not just at where I'm going to have to plant my pole or make my next christy.  My favorite is a about a four-mile glide at Winter Park in Colorado.  It takes me about 40 minutes to get from the summit to the base.  Now THAT'S skiing!

I play the piano.  Well enough.  No audience, please.  Oh, how I HATED recitals!  I play for myself.  Everyone can thank God for that.  At least I know enough not to inflict my playing on others, if I can avoid it.  I used to be better, but ever since getting bifocals...!  Oh my.  I have a terrible time reading the music with my head thrown back so I can look through the bottom of my glasses.  And I lose my place in the music.  And I can't find the keys.  Without my glasses, it's even worse!  I keep threatening to get a pair of CHEAP single vision glasses just for the piano.  But I enjoy the noises I make.  I can hear the RIGHT notes in my head, no matter what is coming out of the instrument!

The point is, who are you doing these things for?  Do you have to be the best?  Do you have to meet someone else's standard?  Are you in a competition?

Obviously, I'm NOT at a competitive level in any of the things I like to do, so I'd better just do them because I like to do them!  What are some things that you like to do that you avoid doing because you think you're not good enough?  I need to make a list of my own, and start DOING them.