Let's start off by saying... if you can name the song/movie that the title of this post is from then I will love you forever.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I've taken up some hobbies. Baking is by far the tastiest hobby, but painting has been surprisingly relaxing and at times rewarding. At work we use painting as a healthy coping mechanism sometimes. We have a woman come in and teach our group members how to use watercolors and the two hours allotted for group tend to fly by- it's pretty amazing. After messing with watercolors in these sessions I realized I really enjoy doing it, so for Valentine's Day Joe bought be a box of watercolor tubes, paper and brushes. He's started painting with me and it's a really nice way for us to spend time together. We've set up a (formerly used for beer pong) table in our family room so we can sit at a real table but still watch epic shows while we paint- like hoarders, inside 9/11, etc.
Joe has been massively showing me up with his watercolor skills but I go on unimpeded! My main focus has been trees. I told a client that last week and she asked why and I realized, I really have no idea why, I just love trees. I think they symbolize all of nature's beauty in one thing- they reach deep into the earth to gain stability, and then they stretch for the sky... they're just beautiful. My first tree attempts left much to be desired.
Trees seemed so easy, trunk, branches, leaves, done. False. The branches can't all look the same, each branch breaks into a bunch of little branches, the trunk isn't a straight line and no tree is perfectly round up top. Not as easy as I had hoped, but I kept trying to make one large tree and with a lot of horrible and some decent attempts I made one I was kind of happy with.
It wasn't great but I was happy with the way the leaves looked and the trunk was a little more defined. It looked like a tree. After realizing that maybe I needed to start smaller I came up with some trees I was happier with.
Everything looks so easy when you just look at it. "Oh sure, Dexter is made up of squares and triangles and circles, I can paint him... oh wait.. he's all black and furry and I suck at this."
So we went to the library on Saturday and we picked up a few books on watercolors. I flipped through and started copying some sketches and then painting them with my own color ideas and ended up pretty happy with what I had done.
I wasn't born with any real artistic ability so this is a big struggle for me, but I'm learning. Every time I paint I get a better idea of how to use the paints and how to shape the structure I'm sketching. I'm learning, and I'm so glad that I can share this process with my husband (even if he is way freaking better than I am).
3 comments:
Ellen, I love you! And your watercolour skills are progressing quite nicely. Your focus on trees reminded me of the book "Speak." <3
I haven't read it although I did see the lifetime-style movie =)
These are so awesome! How inspiring. My mom taught me to watercolor a few years back (she's reeeeally good), but I never got near as good as this. Makes me want to try again!
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