Venturing Out of my Comfort Zone

Friday 25th September 2020

Art wise these past few weeks have been interesting in many ways – trying to learn more about how watercolours behave, trying to learn about perspectives (due to the fact that I am self-taught and haven’t really needed to know about perspectives) and generally trying out new ideas as well as ways of painting. It has been a challenging few weeks – I suppose learning new things at my age can be quite challenging, but it has also been good fun and let’s face it, we all need some fun in our lives just now.

Before lockdown I enrolled on a course to learn more about watercolours from a professional artist in Edinburgh, but unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances I couldn’t attend that particular course, so I enrolled for her next one and guess what – yes, you guessed it, lockdown happened. I’m glad to say that her course did go ahead recently and I went along. It was good to meet the people I had been texting on and off for the last 4 or 5 months who are also on Sheila’s WhatsApp group. It is really interesting to find out about new painting techniques and how to achieve different colours and effects using a different type of paint.

During these weeks I have also decided to move further out of my comfort zone by trying out a slightly less abstract way of painting – I think it is called abstract realism where you can see exactly what the subject matter is, but with a bit of abstract added. I really enjoyed painting these 2 smallish pieces (named Velvet Moon and Sweet Sunset on my website. My husband is my main critic and I usually know immediately if he likes what I have painted or not (his face and silence gives it away!!!) but he really did enthuse about these pieces. If you would like to buy one (or both!) then please visit my website shop.

Whilst looking through a box of birthday cards looking for a suitable one to send to a friend, I came across a card with a lovely view of Edinburgh Castle on it which I really liked and felt I wanted to paint. Actually my first attempt at painting this was at the art class I mentioned earlier. I ran out of space then, but I didn’t want to let it beat me, so I have been trying it again at home.

This was totally pushing me out of my comfort zone and I am finding it challenging, but I am excited to see how the finished painting will look. I have used acrylic paint this time, not watercolours, but I may try to also paint it in watercolours in the future.

You can see my work-in-progress painting at the start of this post. I’m going to call it King of the Castle. It could take some time to complete, but I am not going to beat myself up about it – I’ll just enjoy this journey and give you a laugh at the same time!!!

Stay safe folks.

Till next time then……
Lyn xx