I had a truly delightful couple hours today introducing an artistic boy to watercolour. He listened carefully to my demos and technical info. He asked such insightful questions that showed he was integrating different aspects of watercolour into what he already knew of science and chemistry. I tried not to overwhelm him with too much information but he really soaked it in like a brain sponge. I think we touched on most of the topics in my 3-day adult course. He is eleven, so he has lots of time to explore his art interests and maybe this will give him a head start. Art is such an adventure!

A 48x36" of something pretending to be canvas with a really bad painting on it - useful for anything? Maybe for practice using really big brushes and other tools in my closet that I have never tried? So turn it upside down and cover it completely with acrylic paint leftover from another project. Find a loose image for subject matter and see what happens. 
What have I learned from this so far?
- On a hot dry day, the acrylic paint dries way too fast for finesse.
- Big brushes of poor quality are ok for painting walls, not art images.
-  This fake canvas takes acrylic paint pretty well. I wonder what it is.
- I like the looseness of my brush strokes on the foreground.
- Throw it away now. The painting might end up looking great, and then what would I do? Hmm, I could cut it out of the stretcher bars and mount it on hardboard and add cradle bars.
- NO.  Do not waste any more of my limited painting time on a poor quality canvas. 

** I think the Caribou Migration painting is finished, but I am having trouble getting a good photo of it. Lighting issues again. 

These are some oil or acrylic paintings that I did a couple years ago. I was experimenting with the grisaille process (a grey scale underpainting).  I thought of them as studies in black and white, but now I feel they have more potential. I added brass to the 4x6x2" mini canvases of Mike playing the trumpet and PanPastel colouring to the 4x6x2" Jazz Singer and the 12x12" Night Trees.   I will stand them around the house to glance at for a while and see if anything demands my attention.

     Sunday, June 15/25
Online videos are useful when not able to attend live workshops elsewhere in the world.  I am using the Mastrius artist platform to watch David Langevin painting in layers of transparent paints. He is thinking way ahead to the final effects while still painting in the first layers. In transparents, that counts. So does years and years of practice until it is instinctive. So - more practice and more thinking intensely about the layers to get to the end. 
     Wednesday, June 19/25
Lots of painting practice is a good theory, but my life is still filled with garden and house fixes that are apparently more urgent, even if not more important. Not one minute of painting since I watched David's amazing painting video. Maybe I can block out some time on Sunday...

Just in time - friends were threatening to do an intervention to save my art show project. 

This is "Cariboo Esker" 24x48" in acrylic (so far) on a recycled canvas.
I am mostly using palette knives and fairly thick acrylic. I have horizontal lines at 5, 8, 7 and 4 inches from the top to show sky, land, shoreline reflection, and sky reflection.  I am having fun with the palette knives and fast drying paint. At 33C. and negative humidity outside, it is extremely fast drying today even though I am in an air conditioned studio.

On hold until I get back to them:
- "Monarch Migration"
   - Glaze over the whole  with a cool toned veil again to distance the landscape.
   - When dry, paint the monarch butterflies in bright sharp oranges and blacks.
- "Milking Heidi"
   - Correct the shading to make Heidi look skinny like a milk cow with new calf.
   - Improve the milkman but not worry about whether he looks like my brother-in-law.
- several supports that need gesso or sanding to be ready for their turn in the studio.

Aaahhhhh! 18 days without painting a single stroke, and it is only more 3 days until my next Art Coach phone consult.

However, I now have a lovely garden.  The heavy spring garden work is done with the help of some husky young neighbours. Starting tomorrow a wonderful garden elf is coming weekly to maintain it. One more day of yard details and social distractions, then onward to paint and brushes.