I Learned

 

          I love watercolors. I love the way they drift and dance across the paper. Every brushstroke, every drop of water and color holds a surprise. I watch in wonder and awe as delicate swirls bloom like secrets unfolding. It’s the unpredictability I treasure most, the way beauty happens without being forced.

          I consider myself still new to the art of watercolors. Not new in time because it’s been almost a year and a half since I picked up my first watercolor brush and spritzed the pan of paints for the first time. The journey’s been more about learning than producing what I’d call “good” art.

Case in point, the cat portrait. I thought I was done. I shared it with my peeps and my watercolor group on Facebook and they said the nose needed work. They were right. I’d been afraid to touch it, worried I'd ruin what I'd already done. But I got my brave on, finished the nose, and felt proud of the result.

I shared it a second time and got more feedback; add a wash of shadow to the shadow side.

I did. And now I can barely stand to look at it.

But I haven’t failed.

I’ve learned.

I’ve learned that even though there are so many rules in watercolor, there are no rules when it comes to making art.

I’ll paint it again, this time avoiding the things I disliked.

Speaking of cats...

I painted my concrete clay cats. I made them last summer and painted one. The lady I was making them for didn’t like the paint job on the first cat and not knowing what direction to take, I shelved the project.

Now, all these months later, an idea of how to finish them popped into my head. I thought I’d paint them crazy colors and use a stencil to paint on flowers and swirls.

In other words, I was winging it.

I painted the first cat blue, with a black hat and black scarf. I got the stencils out, along with some red paint, and discovered two things.

You can’t successfully stencil on an uneven surface.

And my red didn’t show up on my blue very well.

I took Pierre to the sink and gave him a bath. There, a third discovery was made. Not only did the red wash off, but so did the blue, revealing the gesso undercoat.

I dried him off, sat in my chair, held Pierre out, and smiled at his dappled coat. I’m not sure why the blue came off but I suspect it was the gesso.

I didn’t fail. I learned.

I gave him a fresh coat of blue, a striped tail, and saddle shoes. Then I painted the girls. I have to tell you, the green one didn’t come out the way I’d envisioned. “Things have a way of taking on a life of their own,” I told Trish, my best old friend.

“That’s my favorite one!” she said.

When everything was nice and dry, I gave them all a coat of my homemade glass paint. That’ll keep the paint from coming off.

See! I learned!

 

It has always been my intention to hang the three together, along with some beads and maybe some bells and ribbons of cloth, onto a branch for a rustic, boho effect.

Miss Rosie, boho is slang for bohemian, a socially unconventional way regarded as characteristic of creative artists.

Chicory is blooming. Someone posted a picture of pink chicory on Facebook. I thought these petals were losing their pigmentation. Now I’m wondering if there’s not a touch of pink chicory in there, too! Who knew there was such a thing?!

Knapweed.

Queen Ann’s Lace.

Bull Thistle.

Having lunch. 

            Mullen.

I got photos of the Red-bellied Woodpecker feeding its youngin a mouthful of grape jelly.

Oh my gosh!!

We had rain. And not just a regular rain, rain, but a virtual deluge! It came down so hard and so fast the drains and creeks couldn’t keep up! There was flooding in many towns in our area and even some evacuations.

My Miss Rosie called when it was over.

“How did you make it through the rain?” she asked.

“Just fine. No issues here. How about you?”

“The water just poured down the hill from Vernon’s field. It flooded the basement and even came in under the side door,” she said.

I was surprised. “Really!”

Mike and I got on the golf cart and went to check it out.

The first thing we see when leaving our driveway was evidence that the drain there couldn’t keep up either. It washed good-size branches out onto the road and down the other side into the neighbor's yard.

Our neighbor was not happy! Sally takes such pride in her landscaping. She’s always out there pulling weeds. She didn’t waste any time after the rain stopped, either. She was right out there cleaning up the mess.

A tree came down on the wires just past the Kipps’ house.

A little further up our road, another pipe didn’t keep up with the water. Look at the log that floated out.

When we got back to our house and pulled in the driveway, we see we lost a branch from our Bradford Pear tree.

“It came down just since we left,” Mike said. “Or we’d’ve seen it on the way out.”

He’s right. We would’ve noticed that.

All this rain is making my husband crazy. He hates that he can’t get out there and mow as much as he wants to. Sometimes he pushes it, mowing before the ground has dried out.

Guess who got stuck again this week?

Not only that, I got the golf cart stuck trying to get him unstuck!

Mike tried to talk me through getting the golf cart out, but I couldn’t do it.

“You don’t know how to do it,” Mike said after my third attempt. He got off the Kioti and gingerly made his way across the soggy ground without getting too much mud on his tennis shoes. He got on the golf cart, backed it up, put it in forward and got it out without any trouble at all.

“You made that look easy,” I told him.

          “It was easy,” he said.

          We went to the barn and got a chain to hook on the tow strap. With a longer tow rope, and the golf cart on dry ground, we got the tractor out.

The church down in town had its annual rummage sale. I went three times and brought things home each of those times — and I don’t need a thing!

I found three rolls of printable wall paper, a pack of blank greeting cards with envelopes, and dies for my Sizzix machine.

I got a three-inch ring binder to put my letter blogs in. Have you ever bought a three-inch ring binder? At fifty cents, it was a real steal!

I found four small bowls. Each holds a half-cup and is the perfect size for portion control for cottage cheese or applesauce.

I found a fat separator. I looked for one at Walmart, but they don’t carry them. I thought about ordering one online but never got around to it. When I make No Peek Tri Tips there’s always a lot of fat on top. I’ve tried spooning it off and I’ve even soaked up the grease with paper towels. Neither works very well. The next time I make them, I’ll pour the gravy into the fat separator and see how well my twenty-five cent investment works.

I got a box with fourteen dust masks for when I sand wood. That twenty-five cents was well spent.

I picked up a small table-top desk for watercolor work. That was a bit more money. A whole dollar-and-a-half.

And I rescued two well-loved cookie sheets from the landfill.

Let’s call this one done!