Scattered Thoughts . . .

W hile Lukey and Kenzie were staying with us this week, we did a little bit of painting.  Sheila and I have been wanting to do this with them for quite a while so it was great that we finally had some time to do this with them. This was supposed to be a lesson in watercolors but we chose to use the kids' new set of acrylic paints instead.  Honestly, I didn't feel like digging out the watercolors and the acrylics were already sitting on the kitchen table so we painted with acrylics.  I needed to adapt my lesson due to the last minute change in paints and because I haven't used acrylics for artistic painting in decades.  So, I demonstrated each step before having them do it.  This would allow me to adapt my plan as necessary.  That being said, this also seemed to introduce some unnecessary confusion.  If I had been more concise without adapting, what I was attempting to teach would have been more effectively communicated.   On the previous day, the kids "just painted&quo

O ver the past couple of weeks, I purchased some better art supplies.  The brushes I had weren't all that great, the paper was kind of lousy when using it for painting with watercolors, and I quickly realized that I could use a few different sizes of drawing boards. I had been doing my sketching and painting on a table which wasn't ideal.  Sometimes I kept the paper loose so I could turn it and angle it but then it seemed to buckle and warp more.  Other times I taped the paper down to the table which helped with the buckling and warping but I lost some control in positioning the paper just right.  There are advantages and disadvantages to each method but I decided to purchase a couple of pieces of acrylic to use as drawing boards. This way I can still mount loose sheets of paper for sketching or painting while still allowing full control over positioning and angling the paper as needed. I purchased two 16" x 20" pieces of 1/4" thick acrylic to use as drawing boar