Today was a landscape demo and then we had to paint one of two photos in 10 minutes. I think the idea was to see what choices people make with little time to think.
I was the only person in the class who chose the stock photo of a sun with visible rays bursting through a dark forest. I thought…what the heck? I’ll give it a shot. (Everyone else chose a more natural image of a forest that the teacher had taken herself.)
This wasn’t the exact stock photo, but you get the idea:
Image from Pexels
The result isn’t great, but I learned about a few techniques in the process.
Some of the ladies bugged me today. The ones that already knew each other before the class started tend to chat constantly, even when the teacher is talking. Two of them speak so loudly to each other that everyone can hear their entire conversation. They lack self-awareness.
Given the tremendous amount of interest among my fellow retired ladies in painting landscapes, I could not wait until the next class to try one—a misty one, of course.
Here’s my inspiration photo from my misty trip to Ireland in June:
The round tower at Glendalough—a medieval monastery in County Wicklow, IrelandThis is 9×12” watercolor block paper. I spent about 1.5 hours on it. I used a hairdryer to dry the paper between layers.
I’m going to ask the teacher for feedback/tips next class. I’m actually sad we don’t have class this Monday due to the holiday.
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).
I tried a bunch of wet techniques in this one including lifting paint, dripping, and splattering. My husband’s computer got slightly spattered in the process. Oops! (It’s supposed to be dreamy, floating lotus blossoms, but not sure it reads as that.)And here’s my attempt at a vibrant, crazy butterfly. My paint set has numerous shades of yellow, orange and red, so I was also trying to see what the pure shade of each of those colors looks like.
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.
My husband thinks he looks a bit like Dominic West.
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.
Here’s my snap of Julie the Jewelry Queen setting up necklace displays in the church office the night before the Country Fair.
And here’s a cell pic of our group in action yesterday. (It was taken by our minister.)
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).
Practice 3x5s from Alison’s tutorials
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.
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.
Day 1 painting. Let’s see if I improve over the next 8 weeks.
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…
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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