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Almost done with my Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon.
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!
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watercolors
Watercolors—botanicals 8
Designs from Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon (IG: @themintgardener)
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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!
Winter 2026
This is the first winter in forever that I’m not going to Florida for at least a week. I’m staying here in the cold with my husband—and his new knee—for the entire winter. And it sure is a cold and snowy one. We have a huge snow bank in our driveway and major icicles hanging off our roof. I’m worried about ice dams causing leaking into the house (so far, so good).
On the bright side: I get to see my granddaughter today 😁 Also, the Patriots are in the Super Bowl, which is a big plus if you’re married to a huge Pats fan. The Super Bowl is on his birthday too. Also, my church is hosting an Emma’s Revolution concert Friday to benefit a local immigrant and refugee justice organization. It’s going to be fun.
Yesterday, I watched some of the congressional testimony from people whose lives have been ruined by ICE, including Renee Good’s two heartbroken brothers. Not a single Republican congressperson attended the hearing. I watched Aliyah Rachman—a woman with a traumatic brain injury—testify to the most horrific capture and treatment by ICE that you could possibly imagine. The conditions in the detention centers are subhuman, with living human beings referred to as “bodies.” Watch her testimony here.
My husband has signed on to get his other knee replaced in mid-March, so that’s going to….in a word…suck.
But back to the bright side: we moved an old treadmill from the unfinished side of the basement to the “nice” side of the basement and it still works fine. So I can “take a walk” even when the weather prevents me from going outside. I’m currently rewatching the entire original Sex and the City series while I’m treadmilling. I’m on Season 3.
I’m getting closer to the end of my watercolor botanicals workbook and I decided I’d like to keep learning in a class with a teacher. Last night I found a class at a different community arts center (even closer to my house than where I took my first watercolors class last fall). There was just one opening left, so I registered. I had hesitated to register earlier, because the class focuses on learning to paint one particular subject, which sounded kind of silly. But last night as I watched All Creatures Great and Small on PBS, I decided that painting “soft, cute and fluffy baby farm animals” might be just what I need in the Winter of 2026.
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Designs from Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon (IG: @themintgardener)
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Trying to learn to let the paint and the water “do their thing.”
Designs from Watercolor Workbook by Sarah Simon (IG: @themintgardener)
NO KINGS & more watercolor botanicals
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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 — more botanicals
OK, so my artists pens came and I was able to outline the designs. I intentionally left some small edges unpainted as highlights.
For the next one, the workbook offered two options. Leave the leaves and stems unpainted:
Or wash them with three different colors (slate, sage and stone):
My husband says the first one looks unfinished, but I kind of like it better. Do you really need to have every bit of the surface painted to give the vibe of a certain plant?
Watercolors – botanicals
I’ve run into a bit of a problem with my Watercolors Workbook. The book is designed to have you ink the outlines of the various botanicals before painting. I did that with my pen and ink set, but too late discovered that my ink is not waterproof! The ink went everywhere once I hit it with the watercolor paint. I decided to try inking AFTER painting but I don’t love the result:
I then tried one without inking at all. It’s OK, but I decided to go ahead and order some waterproof black artists pens, as the author suggested.
I like some of the techniques I learned doing the eucalyptus and the dahlia: leaving some areas white to highlight; darkening petal bases with wet in wet color (dark into light); and layering over dry paint with a different color for a cool, translucent effect.
Hopefully my new pens arrive today.
50 Happens 