We are back from Pennsylvania. My husband enjoyed his woodworking class. He learned a lot of tips and info about trees and how they grow then about how to cut it and make furniture. He made a sofa table but it is not finished yet because he had to bring it home unassembled. When it is done I will post some pictures.

The picture above is a tree that I did for my watercolor class. We were supposed to use one color to learn color value. I used water color pencils and a paint brush. It was kind of fun. The teacher said "The tree has dimension and the trunk is believable. Has visual interest and should be matted and signed. Now try using a full spectrum of colors...". I am happy with it. It looks like a tree to me. My next class is tomorrow night. I missed one class and I they were working on the color wheel so I will have to catch up.

A lot is going on right now. My daughter and her husband are temporarily living in my quilt teaching workshop. They have ordered a new double wide trailer and the company said it would take 4-6 weeks before it was ready so they put their old trailer up for sale and the first guy that came to see it bought it. They had to get busy packing and now they are done and out. Their stuff is in storage except for what they need to live right now. Today the trailer company called and said the new trailer is done and will be delivered to the lot on Monday. Wow! That was quick! The old trailer will be moved tomorrow then cement runners have to be done and a new septic tank before the new trailer can be moved.

And now we are watching a tropical storm that is heading to the gulf and possibly toward us. It is always a scary time when that happens. We will watch, wait and pray.

Trees...

I signed up for a paint class for absolute beginner's. My daughter is taking it with me. I had my first class last Thursday and we didn't paint-we drew! It seems that you have to be able to draw before you can paint. Why didn't anyone tell me this.
It is a watercolor paint class and for some unknown reason I thought I would just go to class and put paint on the paper canvas and have tons of fun. No, that was not to be. Instead he said draw a tree. A TREE! I don't know what a tree looks like in my mind. How can I do this. Oh well, I thought I can put down lines that look like a trunk. I did and the result is in the upper left corner. He said "It looks like a fantasy tree". Huh, it seems my branches are out of proportion to my trunk. He said "Start over and try to let the branches go off the paper. Don't let the paper confine me". WHAT!
Ok, I can do this. The result is in the upper right corner. He said "You are concentrating too much on the individual leaves. Try to think in color value. Blocks of light and dark." So I fixed it. He said " It looks good. Your strength is texture and detail". Didn't he just tell me not to do too much detail? I'm confused.
I try again using a light source this time coming from the upper left of my page. The result is bottom left in the picture above. He looks at it and tells me to try my darks and lights in different places so I do (I didn't take a picture of that one.) His remarks "You did exactly what I said, but it doesn't look right, you were right with the other one". Huh? Ok, I think, a great teacher, not afraid to admit when he is wrong.
I try for another tree at home and the result is the bottom right corner. Our homework was to read this paper he gave us on "line", which made no sense to me at all and to draw more trees. I don't want to draw more trees, I want to paint some trees. It is a paint class, after all. Oh well, we will see what the class holds in store for next Thursday. Until then, I'm drawing trees.