Getting Back in the Painting Groove

Watercolor Workshop with Jan Ross at Paulding Fine Arts in Dallas, GA - One of the fun things about attending a workshop is there is time to just "paint".   Sounds simple but it's an important thing.   During the winter I was on a roll......everyday I was up and after grabbing a cup of coffee, I'd be in my studio painting.    I had decided that I was going to limit myself to watercolor and charcoal.    The best way to learn something new or improve on something you are not good at is to practice.      After weeks of watercolor, watching You Tube videos and tossing many paintings in my discard drawer, I finally had around twelve paintings that I wanted to frame for my show at Dog River Library in May 2016.    Then....came spring and the garden has been calling me, maybe not daily but several times a week I'm spending hours tending to my flowers.   What a spring it has been!    The garden has been beautiful but during that wonderful experience I got distracted by my garden and oh yes, a new author, Steven James too.   He writes thrillers and I have become addicted to his books, reading one every couple of days.   Thank goodness he's only written around 15 so I'll come to the end of that obsession soon.    But like most artist, after a few days away from the easel you find that either you are anxious to get back or you keep finding excuses to do something else.   For me it was read or work in the garden.

To snap myself out of my "unpainting coma", I signed up for a workshop.    I had signed up for a couple of classes lately and been disappointed.   Either the teacher didn't really teach or the class was so slow you could go to sleep during the "talking" build up to painting.    I took a chance and signed up for Jan Ross' Watercolor Workshop at the Paulding Fine Arts in Dallas, GA.    I don't know that I learned anything specific that was new information but we basically painted from 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.    It was just what I needed to get back in my groove.    No masterpieces but definitely good to experiment again with what watercolor will do.