Happiness Project: Make More Art

Watercolor of my friend Liane and her bf in front of Mt. Fuji in Japan

My goal for this month is to paint more. Unfortunately I don't really know what to paint, but I want to find something to do at least every couple days...even if I'm painting pictures of mugs and stuff from my cupboard.

I'm learning a lot about my art style, but I'm frustrated with my lack of improvement. I want to be great already!! But the only way to truly get better is to experiment and paint, paint, paint. So this month I want to actually do it! I'm going to be painting a similar scene to this one on canvas this month for my friend Liane. I like canvas so much more than rough watercolor paper, which the one above is on. Canvas is smoother ans more forgiving. Paper won't let you blend something out or try to remove the paint if you mess up. I also have a couple large sheets of cold press watercolor paper that I need to use. That paper is also smoother than rough, but I don't want to waste it on anything trivial. I'm too poor to afford more supplies right now. I need to get out there and take some pictures, so I'll have something to paint. So I guess I'm returning to that other goal; I need to take more pictures!

Sorry if this post was rambly...I am writing it at 1:45 in the morning.

On Father's Day...

This weekend was kind of hard on me homesickness wise. Saturday was my mom's birthday, and Sunday was Father's Day.

While I couldn't be home with  my own family, I did get to have a lot of fun with James' family. Yesterday we even played softball for the second Sunday in a row!

When I was in high school, I hurt my shoulder playing softball, and it has been a really long time now since I've played, so I can't tell you how much fun it is to play again, even if it was just a little pickup game. On a sour note, I kind of hurt my groin on my first run to first base, which teaches me that I need to stretch a little better before next Sunday's game. :)