Several of my blog entries discuss leisure activities during our senior lives. But what is leisure for me. The best thing I like about leisure is freedom to do things for the pure enjoyment. But I ask myself this question “besides walking and watching Glee, and creating blog posts, is that all there is?”
Over the past five weeks I immersed myself in watercolor painting (no pun intended). My wife Elizabeth who is now approaching her degree in fine arts at Kwantlen is mentoring me. She is very helpful and is able to critique me with the same skill and attitude that her arts instructors give feed back to their students.
It is interesting that each time I start a new project, I am fearful and I ask myself “What am I afraid of?”. I really don’t know. Once I get started I have a great time. My first Acrylic painting and first use of a canvas was last evening from 6 to 9 pm at Camp Alexandra in Crescent Beach, British Columbia. About 40 people attended. We all used the same Van Gogh painting as a reference, Starry Night but using the local area as a subject so no one was just trying to imitate the painting.
What an evening!!!!!!! Outside on the grass, a full moon shining through the trees and happy laughter as about 40 people ate a brief meal of crackers, cheese, drank a bit of fine wine and began painting.
I started making art about 3 months ago when I started drawing. After I finished a whole booklet of sketches I moved on to watercolour and kept the size at 8 ½ by 11 inches so that I could put them in inexpensive frames from local Dollars Store but also partly because I have been afraid to take on larger projects.
And then came last night with canvas 20 x 16 inches. I am not going to abandon watercolor but now I’m starting to include acrylic and am excited about a bigger canvas. Happy, happy, happy!!!!!!!
Below are my most recent watercolour paintings and Starry Crescent Beach from last night’s workshop.
 |
| Yellow Warbler, watercolour on paper |
 |
| Northshore Mts. watercolour on paper |
 |
| Starry Crescent Beach, acrylic on canvas |
