What's Your Crack?

Before Jocelyn went back home to Athens, and after Carlene felt good enough to stay alone for an hour or two, Jocelyn and I took a car trip to the grocery store.  On the way home, she wanted to take a tiny little stop at Tuesday Morning and I wanted to take a tiny little stop at Jo Ann's.  While she was looking at cooking utensils at TM, my eyes glazed over and I wandered into the crafts aisle.  Then at Jo Ann's, while I was looking at the yummy colors of papers and inks, Jocelyn's eyes glazed over and she wandered into the candles aisle.

Jocelyn loves to cook, especially Italian cuisine.  I don't do cuisine, unless you count a chalupa as cuisine.  (I did, however, recently purchase a 1940s Mixmaster in black and white with the original beaters and instruction book--just for the sentimental rush I got when I heard the distinctive motor whir, then I rushed home to make a pound cake--even though I already have a Kitchen Aid mixer for that purpose.)

"Kitchen utensils," Jocelyn said, "are my crack."

In the crafts stores, I find my "crack" in the paper crafts section: inks and watercolors, colored pencils and origami paper and punches.

At night, now that Carlene goes to bed earlier than I do, I am watching video classes on Bluprint--classes in cake decorating (which I never plan to do) and classes in photo transfer and flat lays and gel skins and sketching.  I am then trying out the things I have the materials to try out and making notes for the ones I want to play with later.

Play is the operative word.

When I quickly packed for this trip three weeks ago, I didn't pack my Nikon or markers or glues--just one package of colored pens Day had given me for a Christmas present and a little blue journal Victoria gave me.  Somehow having limited supplies has been a good thing--though I have bought a few extras.  

These classes are so inspiring!  

Last night's midnight class prompted me to  attempt a sketch of a clown book end on Carlene's table.

Attempt #1 looked more like a dog than a clown, and I won't show it to you.  Attempt #2 bore a bit more resemblance to a couple of clowns. 

Another night, I tried my hand at watercolors, this one of Carlene's then-blooming amaryllis:

I have a long way to go!  This first attempt at spreading water color with a water brush doesn't shimmer and glow like the actual flower did, not even close.  But it was an exercise in looking and noticing the shapes of the petals and the deep reds and oranges miraculously poised atop a long green stalk. 

The process--just playing with colors--is addictive.  

                             WATERLOGUE

If you have an iPhone, check out a free app called Waterlogue.  You can use it to turn photographs into images with different effects, including watercolors.  I used these images as guides in my first flower paintings.  Here are a couple of Waterlogue translations of the amaryllis: 

And here are some Waterlogue interpretations of my niece Mary Elizabeth's worried looking rescue dog and one of Victoria's love birds: