Getting the rust out of my fingers

I have a commission. I love saying that: it makes me feel significant.

When I sent out my newsletter about writing, art and coaching, a friend asked me to illustrate poetry he had written for his children. I said yes. He wants to give it to them for Christmas. There are 25 poems.

I am trying to do watercolors for as many as I can. I will not be able to paint for all of them. Some will have to be simple drawings. The poet and I agreed that I can send watercolors next year as they get finished. He has a book with acetate pockets and he can slide the new ones in when I finish them.

The process is exhilarating. I love working with the paint and the high quality paper. I have tons to learn, but after a few weeks of working on this, I can see that my later work is getting better than my earlier work and I feel more confident. I like some of my pictures and I can see how to fix some of the ones I'm not satisfied with.

I am using photos from the web mostly. Thank you, google. Then I draw my idea. Some are fun. Some are a serious rendering of an animal, for example. I have to force myself to speed-draw to get going. I learned this in a life drawing class. We had to draw an entire person (naked) in 15 minutes. The next time it was 10 minutes. Then 5. We went all the way down to about 30 seconds. It was a very helpful exercise, which forced us to resist the temptation to get all bogged down in the details right off the bat. Instead we had to get the essence of the pose down. Maybe I did learn something in art school.

After the layout come the colors. This is something I learned from David Dewey's class. "You don't want to go looking for your colors while your paper is drying." --or something like that. You have to waste lots of paint (mix up plenty of color before you lay any down on the paper. I am not good at this. I want to mix my first color and start putting it onto the page.

I have decided to use watercolor colored pencils on some of the pieces, because it is easier and faster and suits some of the brightly colored pictures very well. Like flying froggie. But the reindeer is done in natural, more subtle shades.

When I get done, I'd like to put some of them on my blog, but I'll have to work it out with my poet friend, since his poetry is copyrighted.

I made my daughters look at everything I've done so far. They like the realistic ones best. I do too.

I know this: when I first started I liked the work, but I was frustrated over spending so much time on one picture and not being satisfied with it. I felt panicky about being able to meet the deadline.

But now, I am making progress, the finished products are better, and I am just enjoying working with my hands.