Last year I saw Jane Davenport's clever invention for happy creative travels - the Peerless Palette - and figured that would be a light and easy way to carry my watercolours with me when I go out. I purchased the Peerless Watercolors from Jane's store and then didn't do anything with them. I didn't forget about them - it was just a matter of getting my head around how and when I was going to make my light and easy watercolour palette. It didn't help that we had to move house for the 4th time in 3 years!
Skip forward about 9 months.
On Friday night I went to a craft night - the first one I have been to in Sydney - that's nearly 4 years of no craft nights! While pondering what I could take along to do I remembered my Peerless Watercolors and realised that this would be just the right thing to take along and get done.
It took a little bit of searching in boxes to find the paints and then a little bit of rummaging to decide what to make my portable kit in but when I came across a very cute photo album that my friend Peg had given me I knew it was the very thing I would use.*
After I had eaten a slice of poorly photographed** "Adult Cake" I set to work.
I surprise myself! You know how I love to have things arranged in rainbow order? Well, I kind of wanted to do that with my Peerless Watercolors but I chose not to make things hard for myself and not to agonise about it so I just chopped and stuck without a moment's remorse or regret.
With a feeling of great satisfaction about finishing a project I sat back and silently wondered how I could put my newly formed kit to use. I had recently been overwhelmed inspired by a watercolour portrait and the time-lapse video of it being created so when the lovely lady sitting next to me said "Paint a portrait of me!" I felt somewhat challenged to do so.
Still feeling rather relaxed about everything***, I whipped up a quick sketch and painted unreservedly, slopping watery paint all over the shop as if I was Agnes-Cecile. Not surprisingly, the results were tragic.
I knew that if I didn't pretend I was a watercolour artist and actually paid some attention to what I was doing, and waited for the paint to dry (that is one thing I find really difficult to do), then maybe I could produce a rendition that was half-way acceptable. I took a photo of the lovely lady sitting next to me, went home and the next day painted another portrait while watching listening to Bride and Prejudice.
Apparently, it looks like the lovely lady sitting next to me, cos when I showed it to some friends at church they could work out who it was with no clues. :)
I have a lot of respect for watercolour artists. A lot of respect.
:D
* I had used the very cute photo album for a while as an album for photos of my very cute grandson.
** That stuff is really hard to photograph. And that stuff on top is beetroot-coloured cream whipped to a fraction of a second short of butter!
*** Maybe it was the chocolate cake!
