I’ve been plodding away on the watercolor Jump-Start videos and although I haven’t been able to get to it daily, I’ve been doing it often enough that I am finally starting to understand the watercolor painting process. One of the main skills needed, to my chagrin, is that of patience. Didn’t think patience was a skill? We joke about the dangers of praying for patience, but in truth it is a learned skill that only comes with much practice. I am not a very patient person. Although there are lots of times that you want the colors to bleed and blend together, there’s a trick to knowing how long to wait before adding more color so that it doesn’t just take over the whole area. There are other times when the paper must be completely dry before adding another layer. I keep a hair dryer by my table to speed up that process. And all the time, I hear a voice saying “Patience, my young padawan.” It’s a voice in my head, though, not on the video.
Anyway, I thought you might be interested to see what I’ve done so far, since I’m almost halfway through the video series. A lot of the early ones are very abstract. It seemed like a potential waste of time, but I’ve learned something valuable from each one.
I broke away from my color scheme for one of these – shouldn’t take you long to find it. Which one do you like best?
What have you been plodding away on? Do tell!
I’ll probably delete this in a plodding way in the morning.
Lynniebeemuseoday 
I vote for #12 stylized flowers. My latest project is laying rock in the yard. One wheelbarrow at a time.
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For a rock garden? To keep weeds from growing? That sounds like a lot of hard work!
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No rock garden. The whole backyard. It’s common to use rock for the whole yard in SE Arizona.
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I like the ginkgo leaves, as well as the leaves above it. But, I also like the technique study in row 2, 1st picture. I’m plodding along trying to find a resort up north to spend a week–too many choices and too many variables. Guess I should work on it some more tomorrow.
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I’m so glad you could tell those were gingko leaves! I wasn’t even sure myself by the time I got done with them. 😊
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I don’t know if this is the color change, but I see Ginko leaves!Do you remember climbing the Ginko tree across the street?For me, that was the best climbing tree- not as far up as”Big Piney”.Your “trials” look like masterpieces to me!Keep up the good work!I made the strawberry-current with pepper jam from “our” jam/jelly cookbook! I made a half recipe – do you realize how manycurrents it takes to make two pounds????Anyway, I used the same amount of lemon (I didn’t cut that amountin half) and I am so glad I did! The lemon I think really enhances the flavor. I purchased some goat cheese and made some sour creambiscuits and sampled the jam with the cheese on the biscuits. Oh mygoodness, how delicious, if I may say so myself!
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I used ginkgo leaves in honor of that wonderful tree – it was my favorite in the rose gardens and I have such fond memories of it. I’ll have to show you sometime a ginkgo leaf necklace that Kathy O (from CHS) gave me because she knew how much I loved that tree. As to the color change, I didn’t have any blue in my Jump-Start palette. Bravo on the jam making!! Did you use homegrown currants? I actually just made the green apple jelly from our own apple trees. It’s an ingredient in a few of the other jam recipes where the fruit doesn’t have enough pectin. Your jam sounds so good! This spring I made the rhubarb banana citrus jam to use up some of our rhubarb. It was surprisingly good!
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