Yesterday was my last watercolor class and we all brought things we'd been working on and wanted to finish. The assignment which created the floral above was to start with a multicolored background and leave white space to insert some flowers of different sizes and types. I can paint a flower if I have one to look at but to create them out of my imagination is not easy for me. Watercolor teachers always tell us to be careful not to lose the whites and of course, I became so engrossed that when I realized it I had only one major white space in which to put a light-colored blossom. I put the painting aside thinking I had ruined it. My teacher insisted we bring our "mistakes" to work on the last day. She showed me some tricks to rescue the daisies. While I don't love it, I like it much better than before--and I now realize that rescue is possible if I am willing to give up my original expectations for the piece and just go with where the possibilites take me.
I will miss my every Monday class but I am ready for a break. I hope I can be self-motivated enough to do some painting on my own during the summer months. The art club I belong to carpools each week to a different location to paint outdoors together. I hope to make a few of those, but traveling light has never been one of my strong points and I can imagine needing a wheelbarrow to transport all my supplies from place to place.
We will be traveling a lot this summer and--for added portability--I plan to take only a sketchbook journal, watercolor pencils and several brushes.
I had my third Spanish class with the new group today. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. Each of us wrote out a description of our most favorite vacation. We all got vicarious trips to Costa Rica, Alaska, Spain (two), Italy and Estonia. As much as I enjoy the classes I always come home mentally exhausted from working in a second language for two hours.
I have no schedule. Our baseball team is out-of-town. I think I'll take a nap--before I finish packing away winter clothes and hanging up the summer ones.
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