many thanks and imminent winter

First, thanks to all for all the feedback on my painting as I progressed. Your honest critiques, suggestions, and specific remedies helped me make it better. I might go back at some point and work on the trunks a little more or add more sprigs popping up from the green or see if I can make the yellow a little brighter at the top but right now I’m putting it aside and filing those suggestions away for future paintings.

I’ve already written about how I decided I wasn’t a painter way back in my 20s (you can read that here if you missed it and want ) so five decades later I’m trying my hand at it again and of course I would pick the most difficult medium, watercolor. But that’s me. Screw baby steps and go straight to the thing that takes the most skill. 

My first introduction to watercolor was via two six session classes taught by a woman here in this small town who taught art in school for many years and is an accomplished watercolorist. The first was in January of 2020, the second in March of 2022 and I did nothing in between the two sessions. Beyond the class exercises/paintings I have only done four paintings on my own. The first was a copy of another artist’s watercolor of birds and pink flowers as an exercise in technique though I changed the birds to different ones. I did that one on my own at home during the time of the second class. The second was in June of 2022 of the yellow trumpet flowers.  Most of ’22 was spent making my last major piece of pate de vere, the Coral Box and then I went into a creative funk. I didn’t do glass, I didn’t draw, I didn’t paint until August of last year when I got out the watercolors a friend had sent me that she no longer used. The result was my third painting, the landscape of the dead tree in the lake. My fourth is the just finished aspen trees. Also did three drawings, the tallow leaves, the buckeye butterfly, and the honeybee. My intent is to have either a drawing or a painting going at least every month for 2025. I’ve been collecting photographs for inspiration but I think the next painting is going to be one I first did in glass and then a drawing, a close up of a female zucchini squash flower. It’s small, only 4” x 4”.

I check the forecast every day and currently predicted lows are two nights at 29˚, two nights at 31˚ during a week with lows in the low 30s. Sunday it’s going to plunge over 40˚ from 75˚ to 29˚. I started bringing plants in yesterday. I’ve got all but three in of the plants that come in the house, one of which is the big stag horn (that empty space on the table is for the stag horn). 

I’ll bring those in today and tomorrow I’ll bring in the big ones with my grandson’s help, the plumerias, pink angel trumpet, and the night blooming cereus, that go in the garage and cover the ponytail. I went ahead and cut all last years growth off the two bridal bouquet plumerias today for two reasons; one, they will be easier to move and protect and two, I cut them back in the spring anyway because they just get too damn tall over the summer.

Today I went around and took the last pictures of blooming things I'll get because Monday everything will be frozen. In order: pink trumpet flower, all the roses of which these are just some, lantana, shrimp plant, a little ground cover, and the cosmos. Most everything is on its last legs anyway.