I’ve watched a couple more online watercolor tutorials with the baby-voice lady: Allison Lyon.
I’m learning there are entire sub-genres of watercolor painting. Some can be very vibrant, precise or realistic (i.e. “botanicals”), and others can be soft, blurry, dreamlike (involving a lot of wet-on-wet and water-related techniques).
Our teacher likes to paint portraits, so we painted portraits today.
She first gave a lesson on creating skin tones. The basic recipe is this: a lot of cad yellow, a little cad red, a spot of cobalt (or ultramarine) and varying amounts of water.
Sometimes a bit of crimson for very pale/pinkish people or a bit of purple for darker people.
She strongly urged us not to try to paint anyone we know and love on our first attempt, so I pulled this Spanish chef out of magazine.
Some of the ladies flat out refused to try painting a portrait. They like landscapes. So that’s what they will paint, because retired ladies do what they want! I fully support this.
The teacher also introduced us to a truly amazing watercolor portrait artist named Ali Cavanaugh. Holy shit, this woman is talented.
My church runs an annual “country fair” which serves as both a fundraiser for the church and a fall festival for the town. A portion of the proceeds are donated to a local nonprofit each year.
It’s always in early October and it has been going on for decades. Different teams work to prepare and then implement the various revenue areas: the book sale, the country store, “trash & treasure,” face painting, bake sale, etc.
For the past few years, I’ve worked jewelry. We get a tremendous amount of jewelry donated by members and friends of the church throughout the year—everything from diamond rings to Mardi Gras beads.
Sorting, pricing and displaying it is a big job! There are about five of us that usually handle this task, with Julie being our fearless leader. Julie is a former Peace Corps volunteer and retired high school teacher with an eye for precious metals. She’s extremely good at making sure we don’t accidentally give away a real gold ring or a vintage sterling brooch for $5.
She tends to monitor and sell the “real jewelry” at the fair while the rest of us sell the mounds and mounds of “costume jewelry.” She can be tough when needed, especially on the early birds who are clearly looking to score some real gold for next to nothing.
Julie has permanently dedicated a significant portion of her basement to donated jewelry, props on which to display jewelry, and tools to evaluate and repair jewelry.
And here’s a cell pic of our group in action yesterday. (It was taken by our minister.)
Posted for John’s Cellpic Sunday.
Most of us wear our church t-shirts to work at the fair which have our shared UU values on the back.
Because my in-person watercolors teacher is self-taught and rather informal, I feel like I need a bit more formal explanation about how to use these famously tricky paints.
In typical 2025 style, I asked ChatGPT for the “best watercolor tutorials on YouTube” which sent me down a rabbit hole. So many teachers! I ended up liking Allison Lyon—a very talented young woman with a gentle, soothing baby voice. I’ve already watched 5 or 6 of her videos and learned some stuff (i.e. wet on wet vs. wet on dry).
I’m not usually a fan of women who speak in baby voices, but given our stressful times, I may amend this view. Just listening to her talk will de-stress you.
She’s on Instagram as well: @allisonlyonart
Teacher provided the still life and then did a bit of a technique demo.
I’m realizing that some of the women in this class already know each other. I think they sign-up together every term.
Started one of my art classes today and was wildly impressed with the community arts center where it’s being offered. I’ve lived within half an hour of this place for years and I had no idea how nice it is. Galleries, theaters, studios…kilns! It really has a lot going on.
Anyway, our teacher’s approach was to basically just dive right in. I haven’t used watercolor paints since elementary school, so that was a bit unnerving. I hadn’t even unwrapped my paints yet. Shouldn’t she teach us some sort of technique first? I guess she wanted to see where everyone is at. There are 12 of us in the class (all women) and some are total beginners, but others are quite experienced.
She pulled out a bin of objects and I got two plastic pears.
Our teacher has a degree (or two) in visual art and is a wonderful ceramicist, but said she’s “self-taught” in watercolor painting. She said she learned by trial and error and feels that’s the best way to learn. It seems like she’s one of these “there are no wrong answers” type of people.
I tend to like a bit more formality, so we’ll see how this goes…
My classmates seem nice.
I’ve already blogged about using ChatGPT for multiple previously human-held roles in my life including
And now, as I’ve been trying to get my high school drawing skills back, I can add “art teacher” to the list.
I asked her what she thought of this sketch of a dining room chair:
and of course she first blew smoke up my ass (as she always does):
But then she gave me some pretty solid and helpful criticism:
And she even suggested some drawing exercises that I might actually try.
Just so you know, I’m registered to take two art classes from real human art teachers this fall. I hope they’re as nice to me as ChatGPT.
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After being a finalist (and not getting) two different paid positions earlier this year, I’m feeling more and more like I actually am retired. My 30+ year career as a fundraiser feels over. It’s not that I couldn’t get some job in the field if I really wanted or needed one, but there just aren’t very many listings that excite me. And I don’t want to work a full-time job that I’m not excited about at this point in my life. I’m going to keep my LinkedIn profile open to recruiters, just in case someone reaches out with the perfect thing, but I’m not holding my breath.
[Side note: I know I’m lucky to have the option to not work at this age. All of my friends my own age are still working. My husband is still working part-time. All I can say is, we have been pretty diligent savers for most of our marriage and we got hooked up with a professional financial advisor early on. Left to our own devices, I’m not sure we’d be in this position. Honestly, my eyes just glaze over when this guy meets with us, but I do trust him. We’ve been with him for 30 years now.]
So, the question becomes: what to do? My daughter doesn’t need much help with my granddaughter and my outdoor summer pool closes Labor Day. I’m going to have a lot of time on my hands soon. I discovered last year that serving on my church’s governing board is not my thing. And my prior level of political activism (when I still thought we could stop Trump) feels futile now.
It seems like I should take advantage of this time and my health to start something new. After considering a number of options (from learning French to getting in way better shape), I’ve landed on something old. Something I used to love as a teenager. Art. I’ve enrolled in one drawing and one painting class for the fall. We’ll see where it goes, but I am excited.
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Honestly, no. And I don’t believe in “soulmates” either. (I don’t think there’s just one person for each us.)
We have free will. And choices. And circumstances. And plain old luck – good and bad.
I guess I’m not a romantic. I’m more of a pragmatic pragmatist.
For many years I loved to draw and sketch. I did some painting as well. I worked with pencil, charcoal, pastels, and pen & ink. When I painted, I used acrylics. I took many art classes as a teen and young adult in school and at local museums. I remember drawing nude models as early as middle school and we took it very seriously (no giggling).
I think I got discouraged when I took a higher level studio art class as a sophomore in college and got a C+. Up until then, I always got great grades in studio art. The professor seemed to want us to make the leap from realism to conceptual stuff. I guess I wasn’t good at that.
I took a photography class after college, but eventually started to put more energy into music and singing. The thing about music (singing anyway) is that it doesn’t take up much space in your apartment or on your walls. You can sing anywhere. No supplies needed. But sometimes I do miss drawing. I loved it for many years.
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