Radishes, 2016
There’s nothing like a city snowstorm to really slow you down, in a good way. This piece over the weekend said it best: blizzards have a way of punishing the ambitious and rewarding indolence.
I took the cue and planned my own un-planned weekend (yes, I understand the irony here), starting with an old-fashioned sleepover with two of my closest girlfriends. Our agenda items: 1) wear sweatpants 2) be cozy in said sweatpant, 3) catch up with each other. (Carbs and Moscow Mules may/may not have been involved).
So you’re wondering about the above radishes? Well, when the girls left on Saturday to avoid a snow-in situation, I took to my watercolors, facing hours of (yay!) time at home.
I returned to watercoloring this past year as a way of practicing my rendering, but also because I just really enjoy it. Fast forward, and my little furniture studies have given way to winter veggies. I started with a red onion, and while I still won’t eat them, I now I see them as beautiful, with just one of them showing several shades of some of the prettiest purples in nature.
I moved on to sweet little bunches of baby carrots, then radishes, first putting down a light sketch before getting into the painting action. Note: time is not your friend when painting fresh produce (I now know). These puppies will wilt and change in front of your eyes if you don’t paint fast enough – a lesson in decisiveness and speed, both essential when watercoloring, which rewards both.
I’ve learned that painting, for me, isn’t about filling up free time with a hobby. “Totally” free time can be hard to come by when most days are composed of working, playing, learning, schooling, commuting, socializing, chore-ing, errand-running…and so on. So for me, it’s quite the opposite: painting is about loving something so much that I carve out the time to do it, often casting aside my to-do list in order to spend an hour or two brush-to-paper. So I chose to enjoy the swaths of free hours this weekend at home. While many of us were inconvenienced, I was – in fact – convenienced*. Lucky me.
*not a real word
Hicks & Henry 