Books

Bread offering

~ MaryG ~ 20 Comments

At certain points during his recovery from his first total knee replacement, my husband described me to others as an “Angel of Mercy.” Believe me, he is not one to toss out religious metaphors (nor am I particularly angelic), but he was in so much pain, that I apparently glowed with an angelic light and golden halo as I fetched his ice and doled out his Oxy.

Now that he feels better, but total knee replacement #2 is less than one week away, I’m wondering if I’ll achieve “Angel of Mercy” status again. Our joke is that there’s an equal chance I’ll be more of an Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s Misery (famously played by Kathy Bates in the 1990 film) this time around. We even joke that if he totally annoys me, I’ll use the mallet we have around to break up bags of ice and the foam roller from PT to “hobble” him like poor James Caan in the film.

If you know, you know.

Given the Annie Wilkes possibility, he’s been extra helpful these past few days. Cooking, fixing stuff, and baking many loaves of his incredible homemade bread. It’s soooo good.

Perfect loaf
Fresh from the oven

The bread offering is appreciated and has been duly noted. I do love homemade bread.

😇

Watercolors—botanicals 10

~ MaryG ~ 18 Comments

These are the last few pages in my botanicals “Watercolor Workbook” by Sarah Simon, a very thoughtful Christmas gift from my daughter.

It was great because it kept me painting through January and February in this very cold and snowy Winter of the Knee, where we’ve mostly just stayed home. (Part 2 of The Year of the Knee—aka “The Other Knee”—is now scheduled for March 16. 🙄)

I enjoyed inking the pre-printed designs with my new artists pens and learned a few good techniques for painting flowers and foliage. Also, I got a lot of useful color mixing information. Each page preserves my color recipes, which will be convenient for future reference.

Finally, hurray for flowers and plants! I’m bad at growing them, but they’re fun to draw, paint. and photograph.

🌺🌿🌷🌻🌼🪴🌱🌸

“Lady Lily” and her little cat 🐈‍⬛
Cosmos and Magnolias
This design is called “Plant Lady Besties” 😊
February flowers from BloomsyBox.com
Did you notice that iPhone has hidden “portrait mode” in a new place? I had to Google where to find it.

Watercolors—botanicals 9

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

Almost done with my Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon.

“Lady Monstera” and her little dog 🐶
Berries and Cyprus

I painted the center flower as one big wet boundary, but I think it might’ve looked cooler if painted each petal separately. Would’ve taken longer though!

Watercolors—botanicals 8

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments
Garden bouquet. I was trying to paint in the “loose boundaries” style here, but then my husband said the middle flower looked boring so I put some table salt in a few areas.
Another anonymous woman from the workbook. She is called “Lady Wisteria.“
“Lady Banana Plant” is very shy indeed!

Designs from Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon (IG: @themintgardener)

Watercolors—botanicals 7

~ MaryG ~ 18 Comments
This headless design is called Lady Sweet Pea in my workbook.
Poppies
Blueberry branch. I think this is my favorite page in the workbook so far. I really like how the blueberries came out.

Designs from Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon (IG: @themintgardener)

Today is my husband’s 64th birthday, which is significant to GenX and older because he’s officially reached the Beatles definition of old age:

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I’m sixty four?”

Also, I hear there’s football a game going on during a Bad Bunny concert tonight. 😉

Go Pats!

NO KINGS & more watercolor botanicals

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

Thank goodness I found another indoor hobby besides reading and watching TV. Between the freezing cold weather and not traveling due to my husband’s knee, I needed something.

Even though I’m working with someone else’s designs at the moment, I’m definitely learning some stuff from this book/teacher.

Daisies
Kind of a weird design called “Lady Rose”

Mark your calendars: The next mass anti-Trump NO KINGS protest will be March 28, 2026.

Here’s the message from the national leadership of Indivisible:

“Our mobilizations grew from month to month last year, exploding from Hands Off in April (3 million) to the second No Kings Day in October (7 million) — and the regime’s ongoing brutality and authoritarianism in the months since have only convinced more Americans, including many who’ve never attended a protest in their lives, to join their neighbors in the streets. Now we’ve got to keep that momentum growing, with the same creativity and dogged determination.

Everything we’ve done so far, and everything we’ll be doing in the next weeks and months, is the stuff of history. And together, we’ll write the history of how, for the second time in 250 years, we the people defied, and overcame, a tyrant.”

The only thing that’s going to stop this authoritarian/fascist train is US—the people. Minnesota showed us that all people of good conscience (left, right and center) must get involved.

Watercolors—botanicals 3

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

It’s a winter wonderland here in Massachusetts. No sign of the plow guy yet this morning, but the Patriots are going to the Super Bowl – again. Therefore many New Englanders (husband, son…) are in a much better mood than they otherwise would have been. Go Pats!

And some good news: our whiny-ass, murdering, rapist, senile, spray-tanned orange President has announced he’s not going to attend the Super Bowl because he doesn’t like the halftime performer. He’s probably afraid all those Boston and Seattle fans would boo him into oblivion. In any case, Long Live Bad Bunny!

I’m continuing to work my way through “Watercolor Workbook” by Sarah Simon. If interested, she’s on Instagram: @themintgardener. All designs are hers.

Buttercup Wreath
I like how the “wet in wet” worked out in the lower yellow flower (upper flower was too dry when I added the darker color). I also like the berries. Author suggested droplets of paint rather than brush strokes.
Fiddle Leaf Fig

Unfortunately my paint set doesn’t have one important color for botanicals: Oxide of Chromium. I’m having to make do with Sap and Veridian.

Wildflower Swag
This is painted in the so-called “undefined boundaries” style. It’s fun to somewhat ignore boundaries and let the paint and water do what it will.

Related:

Watercolors—update

Watercolors—botanicals

Watercolors—more botanicals

NO KINGS & more watercolor botanicals

Watercolors—botanicals 5

Watercolors—botanicals 6

Winter 2026

Watercolors—botanicals 7

Watercolors—botanicals 8

Watercolors—botanicals 9

Watercolors—botanicals 10

Watercolors – update

~ MaryG ~ 18 Comments

As I posted about (a lot), I took a watercolors class last semester and really enjoyed it. I got a lot of nice feedback, both in person and from the very supportive readers of my blog. I put a couple of my paintings in frames (frames that I already owned—not new ones), and my daughter even hung one set of 5x7s on the wall in her living room.

I decided to register for another watercolors class this semester, with a different teacher. Even though I liked my teacher last semester, I wanted to try someone else because I feel like you learn different things from different teachers—especially in the arts. But, lo and behold, the class I chose was canceled due to under-enrollment. So, lesson learned: some arts teachers have followings. If you choose one who doesn’t have regulars (people who re-enroll each term), your class might get canceled.

Rather than scrambling to find another class, I took the refund.

But, I do want to keep going so I’m doing a watercolor “workbook” that my very thoughtful daughter gave me for Christmas.

It focuses on botanicals (which is a sub genre of watercolors, like landscapes) and is fairly structured, compared to the free spirit teacher I had last semester. I’m sure I’ll learn some new things. First step was to swatch out all my colors and then mix new colors according to the author’s recipes.

Phew – I mixed all her colors using the paint set I already own. Most came out pretty close.