The theory was to live blog this one through, but I got tired.

The etiquette of laying on watercolour is something I have been finding fascinating.  Because of the need for sections of the piece to be worked dry and others wet depending on the effect aimed at a certain amount of up-front planning seems to be called for.  At least it this little corner of the painting table....

The painting also goes in stages too...wash in the background first?  That's what I did today....I actually quite enjoy that process, getting to play with all the colours as they swirl and wander.  Especially the blues. My kids would tell you, I like blue paintings.  I have spent my life being quite unaware that I will almost universally exclaim aloud about how much I like a particular painting in a room.  It is invariably blue.  Intensely, richly, impossibly blue.  No wonder I was so happy in the Bahamas.  A never ending always shifting blinding world of blue blue blue.

I have got THE runniest nose.  Makes this all rather difficult as I have to keep on blowing it.  Always stylish in my neck of the woods.

You may have noticed that I have painted in some of the colours on the turtle-y sweety...he is all greens and gold-y beiges and blues.  Interesting the lines that define his shell sections are actually lighter.  That is also part of what I like about this project, I get to observe a little bit every day.....

But now I have to wait while it dries so that the colour I will apply to his shell and his remarkably bird-like wings doesn't blend.  

So I sit here, write to you, contemplate my nose.  If I had a tap that dripped this much I'd have to call a plumber;  we're talking gallons a day.  Contemplate my warm ovaltine before bed.  Contemplate how our bodies continue to change as we continue to age.  I used to fondly, and profoundly naively, think that once we were adults that was it, we were done.  No more changes.  I must have figured that one day you wake up and discover that your body has gotten old...so it has been a bit of a surprise these gradual alterations.  

Lord how thick I am/was/seem as I confess this.....

Think I can paint a little more....

Then I get to this stage, every single time, when I decide that I have irrevocably wrecked it.

Then I let it dry a little, do something else, when I really ought to be sleeping, and come back to it again. Usually it is better after I have come back and painted some more....

While I wait I resist the urge to go and play tetris because I know it will take me faaaarrrr too long and I will NEVER get to bed....

Then I decide that by 12:30 am with a heavy cold is beyond what I can productively do and call it a night.  Time for bed.  The second stage is going to have to wait till the morrow.

Note to self:  To avoid future embarrassment when posting the canvas a day project, begin before 11 pm.