My work is done

I don’t need to go into details, because I’ve done it before, so I won’t bore with the process of doing a watercolor, as shown in the photo to the left. My teacher was not well today, so I worked at home and finished the painting. She probably would have helped me finished it off better, but I wanted to be done with it. I am really pleased with it, but in general I like most of what I do. Mostly because I am still amazed, after three years of studying art, that I can produce anything that looks like something. I like the use of pink and green, although I personally don’t care for those colors. This is not a painting I would frame for myself. I especially like the play of light and the darks in the background. Gabi, my teacher says, I work better when I do my own “interpretation” and don’t try to copy someone else’s work. I think she is right. I am always happier with the result. This is definitely my own work. I did not try to make a faithful reproduction of the photo, but rather do a watercolor that looks like a watercolor and not like a photo. In the beginning I didn’t enjoy working on it because I didn’t like the colors or the frilliness of the iris. I really am a tulip person. But in the end, the pink iris won me over! I am not sure if I will be starting something new before my vacation at the end of the month. I may concentrate on finishing some things I’ve started.

Before I allowed myself the privilege of painting, I finished a job I started yesterday. As I have watched the TV show about hoarders, I am horrified and sometimes fear junk taking over my house. I am not a terrible accumulator, for I am able to throw things out. I try to discipline myself to do so constantly. Nevertheless, things do get away from me. Before I know it, everything is junky. I am forever cleaning drawers and in about a week they are a mess again. This week I tackled the laundry area. I don’t understand how the area where I wash clothes and have cleaning supplies gets so filthy. It was gross. So I pitched old cleaning supplies, and empty bottles heartlessly. I threw out a couple of old appliances that don’t work anymore, for as they have sat around for longer than a year without being repaired, I know I won’t do so anymore. I consolidated bags and sacks and threw out boxes. Why don’t I just throw these things out from the beginning? I even persuaded my husband to pitch some stuff. If I have a slight tendency, he has a strong one to accumulate things. Today, however, he even helped me carry out some stuff and that made me so happy. Now our laundry area almost sparkles. Well, that would be an exaggeration, but it looks like we have twice as much space and it’s a more pleasant area now. So my work in that area is done for now. I have reminded myself I need to be continually on guard against acquiring too many things and against hanging on to things I no longer need. In fact, if there are so many things I no longer need, I probably shouldn’t have gotten them in the first place. I am trying hard to learn to live with less. Never an easy lesson for me.

Looks like my work is also done here, as I also need to learn to work with less words. Gotta keep it simple. In everything.