It’s a magical world

Despite everything challenging that’s going on in 2020 (and there’s a lot!), today I feel optimistic, joyful, grateful, and hopeful. The rain, my cat Gracie purr-owing at me to get up, and the beauty of the flowers I planted in front of our house, all brought me joy this morning.

Even the raindrops beading up on our newly sealed new (in June) concrete driveway made me smile this morning. So I decided to play with a photo of it in Adobe Photoshop using a diamond gradient to color it. Many thanks to my photographer friend, Judith, for telling me about diamond gradients. I have been having a lot of fun exploring them. There is so much in Photoshop I have yet to learn!

It’s a magical world

if you open your eyes and notice

the sheer beauty of it all.

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
― W.B. Yeats

I’ve enrolled in an online watercolor class with Angela Fehr. It’s called “Heart Led Landscapes” and it started today! I don’t know about you, but for me, there is something about making the commitment to sign up for and pay money for a class that motivates me to put the work in for the class.

Another motivating factor for me is that this class includes a group on Angela’s website to share problems/insights/paintings with other students who are also taking the class now, and live videos during the class with Angela.

For the past few days I’ve been doing some introductory lessons to get ready for diving in to painting. Yesterday I picked 6 of my landscape photographs that fit Angela’s criteria for the class (a single focal point, not too complex, and lots of variation from light to dark). I printed off 5×7 photos in color and in black and white. The black and white images are to help me with painting value studies.

And the color images will help guide my color choices when I paint the landscape(s). I have no expectations of how my paintings will turn out because my goal is to paint for the joy of it.

“When you’re touched by magic, nothing’s ever quite the same again. What really makes me sad is all those people who never have the chance to know that touch. They’re too busy, or they just don’t hold with make-believe, so they shut the door without really knowing it was there to be opened in the first place.”
― Charles de Lint, What the Mouse Found and Other Stories

I hope that you too, find that it’s a magical world.

May you walk in beauty.