Playing . . .

I took a break from the exercises in the book just to fool around and learn how these brushes and colors work.  I sketched a dragon--a dragon pretty much like the dragons I was drawing for my boys forty-some years ago.

And then I remembered the door-to-door salesman, selling a handy-dandy bed tray/blackboard. I was probably 10 or 11 and he wowed me as he quickly sketched a parrot and a stereotypical wicked witch. I begged my mother to buy the tray/blackboard and she did--probably because at that time in my life I had strep throat a lot and had to stay in bed, eating half-frozen canned pears. This would make a place to put the bowl of pears.

But the thing is, my drawing skills haven't progressed much beyond that parrot. (I can still draw the 'witch' but omit it for fear of offending my witch friends--there are warts with hairs growing out of them.)

Still, it's pleasant to spend time trying to make the color go where I want it.

Then I decided just to put a rainbow of colors on the palette and just make random marks, trying to shade and get familiar with the brushes, I started with some vertical swashes of red, orange and yellow--and couldn't stop myself from getting representational and seeing tree trunks. I'll probably go back and give then the ink outline treatment to stop them looking so blobby.

And now I remembered an 'art' class at Camp Junalaska almost seventy years ago--sketching trees and being reminded to shade one side of the trunk. These trees hark back, I suspect, to that long ago lesson.

Twenty years ago I participated (for several years) in a studio class for acrylics and oils. My lovely teacher would look at my attempts and say, "You're a colorist, I see." Which I suspect is polite talk for "Can't draw very well, can you?"

But, hey, I'm enjoying myself.