Fishes, Butterflies and Art Dates

I am tired. Tired and buoyant and cross. An odd combo, buoyant and cross I know but there it is.

Today has been visits to farm shops and in-person art dates! This is how my kitchen table looked partially cleaned up….

Arty fun!

So today’s art date was a mindful one….with some chat lol. But interspersed with periods where both of us were quite quiet too, just exploring. It was fun to have someone to chat to and show look how the paint is doing this….and the hysterical fish mouths…who knew fish could be so expressive?

This is the page I created and it was fun sharing techniques and tips too on painting and also on not judging or being to hung up on outcome.

There was an ‘ah-ha’ moment in the conversation when I was explaining (or attempting to) the idea that rather than something is wrong with (in this case) a fish that my eye is being drawn to this part (in this case a wobbly line) and I want it to be drawn to the (in this case) eye. How could I change that? In this instance it was firming up the line a little, making it a little thicker so it was less wobbly. That it wasn’t about good or bad or right or wrong but as the creator where I wanted people to be looking and if I could do anything about that….also that if I couldn’t I could let it go and move on. I doesn’t sound great or even all that clear when I type it but it was a moment.

Whilst my date was trying out the technique I also worked on some butterflies using a QoR dot card a lovely friend sent me to try and some fine-tec paints. They were very pigmented, rich and bright. It was lovely to see them bloom and diffuse in the water and I have more ideas for butterfly and Moth arty play.

We had homemade cottage pie for dinner, I get very organised as it was all prepared and everything! My eldest kid got it all in the oven for us so we could keep painting.

I’m still keeping up with #100daysofmindfulwatercolour and the #artfullywildblogalong. I completed the draft PDF for my mindful mushrooms online class too. The video is edited as one long video and now I need to chunk it down so each step of painting has its own video. The Boaramagonafly is certainly getting me to slay lists and move swiftly in the direction of the desire to teach online!