Don't forget to enjoy the process

My four year old granddaughter recently discovered the fun of slapping bright colors on a blank sheet of paper. It just beats the heck out of coloring books where you have to stay within the lines. This is one of her recent compositions. It's water color on shelf paper. I matted it and framed it to hang as a reminder to me that painting should always be an act of joy.

A difficult still life

I'm not a big fan of still life paintings. I get together with a group of artists (or would be artists) on Thursday mornings and we paint for 3 or 4 hours. We have set-ups around the walls and we each pick one and start painting. On this one I made a bad choice. The manniquin sitting on a shelf looked simple enough. But, for me, it turned out to be difficult. Anyone who has ever tried to make pictures knows that some subjects just seem to paint themselves while others just don't seem to work. This one falls into the second group. The good news is that I'm getting more comfortable with the paintstiks. I'm learning to handle detail and glazing with little effort. In this case the challenge came in the drawing stage. The result is an interesting painting ... sort of. Some people have asked me to name the painting .... How about "Wooden it be Loverly?"