I love nature. I love sitting outside and hearing nature all around you. The soft wind rustling the leaves of the green trees that surround you. The pops of colors from wildflowers hidden where you least expect it.
When camping I will bring along a book, stuff to knit, or fun projects I finally have time to complete. Snuggling down deep into a chair outside, a project at hand, I never touch it. I find myself glancing off at the beautiful surroundings I find myself in. I could, and do, watch nature like some people watch television. It makes me happy.
When looking for something to practice drawing the other day I did a Google search for flowers. Learning to draw flowers and nature type objects is high on my want to learn priority list. With beautiful photos of flowers in front of me, I grabbed a few reference photos to draw from. I was all set to draw and erase for hours.
Not wanting to get overwhelmed I decided to draw a few flowers in a pot.
The pot took on a life of its own. It became the very simple sketch of a smiling coffee mug you see above. There was something about that simple drawing that called to me. It wanted to be yellow. It wanted to be painted. It wanted to come to life on the page.
What was the reason I wasn't painting my happy yellow cup?
While finding anything to do but paint I realized I was afraid. Yup. I was afraid. There have been a few drawings that I have done, I loved the look of until I tried giving them some color. After adding color to my sketches, in any medium, they looked horrible. The worst part was now the original sketch was lost forever.
If only my scanner worked...
I had already spent hours and hours and hours trying to fix my scanner. It has stopped working as soon as we changed internet companies. I put out a plea to a friend for help. They found me the pages in the manual on how to hardwire my printer/scanner and said that should fix the problem.
Knowing the only way this had any chance to work was if I kept calm. I started slowly. Five hours later, new computer speakers worth 11.99 cents (don't ask!), and a Husband afraid to walk into the kitchen, I finally figured out the problems to why the scanner was not working.
I will not mention the fact that tonight I could not print anything from my computer. Let's just make-believe that did not happen for now.
The original sketch now saved safely on my computer I put my big girl undies on. I pulled out my colored water-based inks to begin painting the happy yellow mug. I also wanted to try the fancy watercolor paper I had gotten. I figured now would be a good time to test that out too.
In the video below you can see how it went when painting my happy smiling yellow mug. I made a lot of mistakes but I was able to fix them along with way. I love how she turned out! She makes me smile each time I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye. I am proud of what I was able to accomplish all on my own.
I learned a lot from making one small piece of art.
If you ever find yourself putting something off that you want to do take the time to ask yourself the question, "Why?". You will be rewarded many times over when you find the answer.
Help someone smile today. It can not hurt you.
Snook
All photos are mine unless otherwise stated
Music in the video by @IntheNow
