I spent all winter quietly painting. I Imagine my body will be experiencing boot camp soon. Fortunately, March is a transitional month and a few bad days will give me time to recover and heal in between workdays.
I have been fascinated with watercolor paintings for most of my life. Ten years or so ago I began taking drawing classes from my frind Merri Nelson. Merri is a very accomplished artist. I met her when she was teaching botanical illustration at the Smithsonian. We share a love of gardening as well. She convinced me I could learn to draw and taught me very quickly that I could do much more than the stick figures I had scribbled all my life.
My sister was the artist in the family. It came natually to her. She hasn't painted in years, but recently she showed me some quick leaf studies she had recently done and I recognized the automatic gracefullness of her stokes. I have had to really work at it.
My parents sent her to art school, they sent me to gymnastics. Since siblings are often competitive, my sister convinced me at a very young age I had no talent.
I do find it interesting that she is now an accountant. Somewhere along the line, she also convinced herself she had no talent.
Years ago I dug her collection of fairy artwork out of a dumpster and framed them. She had incredible talent.
She painted the fairies she saw while we played in the woods. This ability to see fairies made me very envious, and I was convinced I was a dud because I did not have this gift.
Fairies are big in our family, we all have a very strong connection to the devic realm. It took me years to realize that the elemental kingdom worked with me in the gardens.
A channel told my daughter that fairy folk floated in the wake of her footseps across the ground.
I have been encouraged to ask my grandaughter to tell me about the fairies she sees as she gets a little older.
Though I have been painting for quite a while, I have never had the time or space to paint all day every day. This winter I wanted to bring my art up to another level.
Watercolor is a difficult medium. Most often described in books as unpredictable. It takes a lot of trial and error to get the watercolors to represent your inner vision of beauty. It is difficult to not undermine the quality of light you would like to have in a painting. I felt the unpredictablity of watercolor can only become somewhat predictable after doing hundreds of experiments.
So that is what I did. I ignored my former blog, my boyfriend and my dog.
I gained a lot more confidence in my painting, and I had a great time~
It is time to get outside and play again, my dog misses me...not so sure about the boyfriend, he may be over it by now.
This butterfly painting was done from a photograph I took in a biodeisel sunflower field.
I had never attempted a butterfly before this....Very Fun~
Enough Writing...off to painting now before I return to the gardens next week.
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