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I've seen a lot of advice around the internet on how to overcome fear of the blank page as an artist. I can totally see how that huge, unblemished white expanse that you spent your hard earned dollars on could be intimidating. Much more often however, I experience fear of the second layer.  Putting down a beautiful first wash is easy. Watercolor's flow and mind of its own means it will do amazing things without much work from me. Deciding what to paint on top of that--without screwing the whole thing up--is hard! I often buckle under the pressure, and end up...

Deciding to paint somewhat late in life means I spend more time than I'd like second guessing myself. That nasty whiny voice comes up and wonders "what basics of design and composition am I clueless about because I didn't formally study art?" No one's ever actually said or even hinted anything remotely like that to me of course! My self doubt just seems to have a way of sneaking in.Being "self-taught" may still have some negative connotations, but I think a lot of that is fading as more and more of us become self-taught via the internet. The current pandemic and...

This is a painting I completed during World Watercolor Month: I don't think it looks like much at first glance. However, it has the most inspiration and meaning behind it than anything else I've painted so far. Here's the story of how this came to be. The prompt for day 26 was "favorite song." I really wasn't sure how to paint this. I started off trying to paint my impressions of a song, but as someone who considered herself a singer first for multiple decades, trying to convey music via paint was just not working for me. I could not wrap my...

Smashing all the computers and phones in our house, then running screaming into a forest. I find myself daydreaming about these sorts of actions a lot lately. Clearly I need a vacation from modern life. I am taking a break from social media for a while. I spent all of July heavily involved with Instagram as I posted my daily World Watercolor Month paintings. Since I was posting daily, I felt compelled to check in multiple times a day to see how many likes my most recent post had gotten, or respond to any comments. Then it was a simple,...

World Watercolor Month 2020 just ended. For the second year in a row I made (and achieved) my goal to paint every day of the month. I'm glad I achieved what I set out to do, but it was enough of a source of frustration that I just don't think I should shoot for that next time. I struggled with inspiration and carving out time to paint every day. Some days I just didn't feel like painting--often I was exhausted and drained after a full day of my "real" job. Or we were super busy fitting in other chores and tasks in the...