Summer in the Studio

Summer! I have to love summer so much. I get to take the summer off from many of my responsibilities. Being a home educator (my title of choice over "homeschooler"), I find that I really need the break from school by the end of May or June, and the dynamics of being at home with my kids becomes so much more fun and relaxing. We have been able to do fun things like eat our height in licorice (red, of course!) and run a race and hang out at the pool and buy hats and take fun photos and plan a big July birthday for a certain almost-ten-year-old. I was able to buckle down this month and finally finish my floral watercolor workshop. I'm so glad I can finally share the link for this great resource! I really packed almost everything I know into that one course, so next on the agenda is to get painting so I can learn more things to share in my next course. I've enjoyed developing this floral course as it has allowed me to revisit florals as a subject and awakened a revived enthusiasm for painting florals. Over the last year or two I've sought to become a stronger landscape painter, but getting back to florals has been so invigorating! Painting flowers just feels so natural and expressive to me that it's just fun every time I put paint to a petal.

It's very easy to feel like I'm not making the kind of progress in my art that I want. We can be so hard on ourselves! Taking some time to just enjoy painting, and summer, and family is a great way to remember what really matters, and celebrate everything I have.