Whatever It Is, Just Do It

I'm almost finished my urban sketching course. I have definitely fulfilled my New Years resolution to take my art more seriously, and I'm sure I've improved at least my drawing a lot this year. It hasn't really given me much time to paint very often but I did learn to use watercolour in a looser style.

Back in February, I tried to draw the house across the street. I used a method called contour drawing, where you follow the outside lines and then fill in the middle with details. I found that method works pretty well for some things but it wasn't working at all well for that house. 

A couple of weeks ago, during this Urban Sketching course, I learned a new method called spiraling, where you pick a starting point and draw outward from that in an ever increasing
spiral. I was interrupted by a major downpour but as you can see, my drawing of that same house improved greatly over just a few months.

This course often had you drawing in public too, as I mentioned a month ago.What I've learned at this point is that that's not nearly as scary as it sounds. People either ignore you completely or stand inside your picture frame and teasingly wonder out loud if you are going to include them. I even had one guy offer to park his snazzy car where it could be added to the picture. I actually thought that would be a good idea, but he didn't do it.

All during these warmer months while I've been out of my house drawing in various place only two people have actually come right over to have a look, and both of them were very kind and complimentary.

I joined a group of local sketchers that met once a week this summer and even they don't really make a point of checking out what the others were doing very often. Everyone was busy doing their own thing. I'd like to get that point across as the group actually had 60 members, but very few of them could get themselves to come out and draw with us. The others obviously wanted to or they wouldn't have joined the group in the first place. They were too shy, or perhaps felt they weren't good enough. Hey, I certainly don't have a natural talent for this stuff either, but it was just plain fun.  You can't get better at something if you don't at least try to do it more often. I hope some of those people see this and understand that they won't embarrass themselves as they won't be attracting nearly as much attention as they imagine.

There are a lot of things many of us would like to do and don't because we're afraid of looking foolish. I know I've said this before, but other people really don't pay that much attention to you at exercise classes, dance groups, drawing classes or anything else. If they are there, they are busy learning or exercising just like you are. They don't have time to look around and make notes on who is screwing up. And, as I found, when I sat and drew all by myself in public places, most people are too polite to just barge into your space and check out what you are up to. I'm not actually getting braver, I've just found out there is nothing to fear.

Enough Already!

Last year I told you all about my string of good luck.  Well, the planets must have shifted positions because now things are just not going all that well in my world.

The computer I normally do the taxes on is very old, and temperamental so I decided to load the tax software onto my hubby's machine this year. I do taxes for most of my family, and managed to get three out of the five done before I got the paperwork for the other two. There are things missing for those, so I have to wait. Meanwhile hubby was on Kijiji the other day and picked up a virus on his machine.  So far, I've only printed off one of the three completed taxes.  Now we have this virus to contend with before I can proceed. Time is quickly running out.

I believe I mentioned that we had recently purchased some new furniture.  We thought we had lucked out finding something so comfortable on a day when it happened to be 50% off.  But they managed to damage all 3 pieces somewhere along the way. It's like they took it off the truck, set it down on one corner and pivoted it before picking up that end. There is one worn corner on each piece, and we are hoping to get it all replaced.

The assessor was supposed to show up on Thursday, but he never came.  Hubby even took the day off to deal with him. Meanwhile, the tags remain on the furniture, and we are being overly protective of it, so they can't say we did any further damage.  We had a 4 year old here a week ago, for the day. I covered everything with blankets and was amazed he didn't decide it was time to make forts!


Today, I went to my exercise class, and before leaving I went off to visit the washroom.  I found myself stuck in the stall. The lock wouldn't release.  I ended up having to crawl out under the door.  That is not an easy task at my age, but I can't  help being a bit glad it was me, and not any of the others in the class. It's a seniors class, after all, with people in their 80's and  and others with bad hips, bad knees, and other problems. I was in there, and everyone else was leaving the building. One of the others could have been trapped for who knows how many days, until another group rented the hall and they were discovered and set free.  Scary thought. I stopped by the municipal office on the way home, to alert them to the locked door I had left behind. 

There have been a couple of other problems lately too, mostly related to one institution or another, so it would take much too long to fill you in on those. Suffice it to say that any operation with the power to screw you up is busy doing that to me these days, so you can relax.

I was going to go to the Fashion over 50 presentation at the Library this afternoon, but it's brewing up  a storm out there, and with my luck, some big branch would fall on my head as I walked across town.  I think I'll just stay here and read.