March 31, 2020 Watercolor Bluebird Dreams

Last week I had a dream about doing a watercolor painting of a bluebird. It was quite detailed and the painting, if I do say so myself, was lovely!

This isn’t as random as it seems, actually. Our house sits on a property that used to be the location of the Bluebird Inn back in the early 1900’s. The story goes that the woman who lived in the house was widowed and needed some income, so she converted her home into an inn. We still have one of the original things that you would put your horse reins around when you came to stay (there’s a perfectly good word for that, but it eludes me. Where are those brain cells when I need them?). (Three hours later: hitching post!!!)

Anyway, shortly after we moved into this house, one of my sisters did a stunning cross-stitch to reflect the history of our property and gave it to me for my birthday.

The next year, she gave me a couple bluebird displays to put on the wall near it as accent pieces. She certainly did her part, but I fell short on my end. Those dear little bluebirds are still waiting for wall placement over 10 years later. It’s a decorating travesty, the kind I’m often guilty of.

Last week, I decided that I would finally TAKE ACTION. I looked on Amazon for little shelves and had this brainstorm that if I got a set of three, I could do a painting of a bluebird for the other shelf. In my mind’s eye, this bluebird painting was going to be very charming: small, simple, but capturing the essence of the bluebird in loose strokes and vivid colors. There’s a Bible verse that is applicable here: “When prides comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.”

Keep in mind my only experience with watercolor painting is from YouTube tutorials and Pinterest pins. At best, I’ve dabbled. But as I considered this project, I thought, “How hard can it be?” Furthermore, I decided that I didn’t even need to look up a YouTube tutorial. I would simply get a nice photo of a bluebird off the internet and use that as my guide. With these kinds of thoughts circulating, is it any wonder I dreamed about it?

One must face reality sometime. Here’s the reality I faced:

I think it’s recognizable as a bluebird, but I really would rather have the one that I did in my dream. Yesterday, thoroughly humbled, I looked up YouTube tutorials for doing a watercolor bluebird, so I’ll give it another try.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning.