Hello Friends, 

This piece was a practice run at doing “wet-into-wet” watercolor painting.  For the sake of my friends who have never painted, it is just what it means.  We wet the paper first, let the water soak into the paper some, then paint into the wet, obviously with wet paint, thus, we-into-wet.

I did this one a few days before my watercolor class last week but then I learned some new things on Thursday when we practiced the technique along with some brushstrokes.  I might take this with me this week to see what my instructor says.  There is also some splattering in there to get the sandy look, but that’s something I’ve always liked to do for beaches.

Anyway, I had fun doing this and that is all that matters, right?  My instructor always says we are painting to have fun.  And I realize learning new things takes practice and work, but if I am not having fun while I am learning something new and just feeling too frustrated the whole time, I tend to want to quit doing it.  I have to REALLY love what I am doing to push through those trials to achieve my goals.

I remember feeling that way about ten years ago when I first started learning to draw in pencil and paint with watercolors. But I chose to stick with it.  I never even showed my very early work to anyone except my family.  I was fine with that. I am glad I decided to keep practicing and reading instructive books, etc.  I took some classes here and there, too.  I believe I wouldn’t be enjoying it as much now if I hadn’t.

I’ve tried lots of other things through the years as some of you know:  learning to play guitar (WAY more of a time requirement than I wanted to spend.)   Playing piano  (I already knew how to play, but was taking lessons again and trying to learn more difficult things.  Again WAY too much of a time – and money – requirement.  I wasn’t interested enough to stick with it again either.)  Once in a while I play stuff I have learned, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I sat down to play anything.

Lately, because of the “Writing for Children and Teens” class I signed up for, my old desire to spend time writing has been greatly renewed!!  It is exciting and has become fun again.  I think starting this blog four years ago actually renewed the desire that has always been in me to write.

This class is a very different kind of challenge, though.  Three things challenge me in this class:

1.  Deciding what age range for kids to write the story for.
2.  Staying within the word count limits!
3.  Changing my mind about how to structure the story. Dialogue is something new to me, too!

So far, though, it is FUN!   I have attempted to write very little fiction throughout my life.  All the writing classes I took in college required writing non-fiction papers except for the last one I took over ten years ago.  It was a creative writing class.  I had to do short in-class writings in response to writing prompts we were given, write some poetry, maybe a story or two, and write a fable.  Writing the fable was the most fun for me.  However, I found it the other day, and it really isn’t very well written.  Hopefully, I am doing better now!

Today, I am going to be polishing up my story some more.  Then I am going to exercise!  Hopefully, I will get to do some drawing and/or painting, too.  And then there is always the laundry.

My husband is in town playing Dungeons and Dragons with some friends.   So I am here alone…oh except for those little Cinderella mice!

Have a wonderful day, and give someone you love a big hug.  🙂