Growing up in the States I have never seen anything like Notre Dame before and it left me speechless. Having the chance to walk around and take it in before sitting down and sketching it was a huge privledge. Walking around inside during mass I felt both French and Catholic for a few minutes.
Stressed and distracted
Moving across the ocean in two weeks is stressful and distracting. Who knew? I am going to miss our friends in Boston so much but at this point I just want to get it over with and get over there already. We have one more full week in our home then the movers come and pack us up and we spend part of a week in temporary housing in Boston. Then we fly out on a Friday red eye flight. The girls are due to start their new school in the UK that following Monday. Some art supplies will come with me on the airplane. Some will go on the small air shipment but most of it will go on a boat and take a month or longer to get to us along with all of our furniture. I need to choose wisely. Temporary housing is waiting for us over in the UK. We will be fine. My goal is to keep working, prepare to depart and enjoy our friends here while we still have them. Life is a party at the moment.
For the many teachers in our lives. Happy Holiday gifts.
Each child has multiple teachers. How can I make a meaningful gift for so many when time and money is limited? Of course gift cards to our favorite local bakery and handmade watercolor art cards. Boston we are going to miss you so much.
Sketching around people
Are you too nervous to draw around people? Especially the thought of drawing people that aren't specifically posing for you? Or maybe even people that are posing for you and asked to be drawn? Too much pressure to do a good job? Maybe you end up scribbling over your drawing, erasing your drawing or even worse ripping out the page and crumpling it up! That was me for my entire life up until this point. But now I just do it and half the time early in the drawing I mess something up or the person moves and I am tempted to give up but I go on and finish the drawing. I always finish my drawings. If I keep going I can fix it to at least be decent plus I learn from the experience of drawing and correcting errors. If I give up I learn nothing. It is summer so go outside and draw and if you are feeling extra brave draw people. They rarely mind.
Quick sketch and watercolor at a summer Small Group BBQ in the neighborhood. I lost my light and had to stop sooner than I would have liked to but I am content.
Stress Relief Watercolor Circles
Vacation travel was wonderful, but as usual I am finding it difficult to adjust to being back to regular life. Especially the not so regular routine that is summer vacation with my kids 3 and 6 home with me and asking for enrichment all. day. long. Camp is expensive and the 3 year old is still too young for most of them and I feel guilty leaving them to watch TV all day and feeding them frozen pizza. So art we do art projects with together and we go outside to the zoo, playgrounds. playgrounds inside of the zoo, sprinkler parks and more playgrounds. The days are hot, humid and very long. I love them but by 4pm I am so totally done and out of things to do and out of energy for myself.
Meditative watercolor paint circles to the rescue. They look cool. They help me relax. They are fun and simple and require more patience than technique and concentration and they help me get to know my paint better. In the end I always feel better and learn something during the process. In my book that is a total win. This one is available on Etsy.
Focus on the process.
Leap of Faith, Lent and Fasting
Feeling some artistic anxiety as I work on this project with Alex and work on this blog. I need to get another blog post up today and I am out of rough drafts to post from. Anxiety about the work and figuring out the next step on this exciting inspired project. Been thinking about my church and their annual Leap of Faith leading up to Easter. The whole idea is that I focus on prayer and fasting for something rather specific. In the past it has been health, pregnancy and other more vague prayers and I have given up a variety of foods, TV and the ever popular Facebook. Some years I have been more devoted to the fasting and prayer and others I have not. A few years I have sat the whole thing out completely. Usually my personal results seem to tie in to my level of commitment. This time around I am giving up complaining and worry. Worrying about the art business and complaining in general. Just do the work and keep going as The War of Art advises. Good advice.And what I am praying for is to see a path of success with my art for it to be more than just a hobby business.
