I have not held a paintbrush in a WEEK

I have not held a paintbrush in a WEEK! Except to unpack from last Thursday and say, "oops, I forgot to wash my brushes." Today was soft pastels and watercolor class at Wet Paint from Carl Olvedt. Like all the people I've taken classes from, he is an artist and a teacher. He had endless patience was helpful and not critical and had lots of groovy tools and ideas and was happy to share.

First off, I hadn't really used the pastels too much and didn't know what they could do. And I think I don't like the rules of watercolor and the WAITING WAITING WAITING for paint to dry. My challenge was to learn more about the tools of art-making (I shouldn't call what I do art, more like play-making) and figure out what I like and explore what comes out of the ends of my hands.

Helpful lessons that I've already learned:
1.  From Kat,  STOP. Works here too. I was done and other people were still painting.
2.  Paint what I feel not what I see. Where did I learn that? I think I'm supposed to paint what I see.

Cool things I learned today:
1. If you buy expensive fancy-ass Arches cotton paper and you don't like what you watercolored or water penciled or water pasteled, YOU CAN SOAK IT IN THE BATHTUB AND GET ALL THE STUFF OFF AND START OVER!!!!!!! I will do that. (we also used some less expensive not as fancy-ass paper that was tan; some kind of paper for printing.)
2. I kind of like the pastels, especially the soft hand rolled (and thus expensive) pastels. Carl let me use his. And the weird blending tools like the French rolled paper pointy thing. I still don't like watercolors, it all turns to mud.
3. I can't mix a brown to save my life in acrylic but in watercolor it's a piece of cake! But I couldn't mix a grey/gray in watercolor.
4. I might be a mixed media person. I liked the pastels, I like the water soluble pencils and water soluble inks and I like the acrylics. I am trying to like watercolor. It comes back to "Make a decision!" and use the brush! Maybe I need different brushes and (what I learned from Kat) maybe I need BIGGER brushes for watercolor too. But brushes are $$$$$.
5. Maybe I paint from rage? frustration? hurriedness? some underlying subconscious confusion? Look at that weird skull below? Is that what a well-adjust person paints? Looks nothing like the real thing. No, I will never be a botanical painter but I admire their work with my deepest heart.

Okay, so here are my experiments.

This is a rendering of a cow skull or some kind of skull. If I say this you can sort of see it although it also looks like a snake head. Pencil, soft pastel, watercolor. I quit on this early on so that I wouldn't wreck it (lesson I've learned). Sort of satisfyingly weird. No one else used a pencil. I felt like I was cheating but how can I cheat if there are no rules. I can do anything I want, right?

This is a section of a larger composition that I liked. This worked out. Blended pastels, watercolor pencils, and watercolor. The rest of the page is crap and I'm going to soak it away and fix it (maybe). Or soak the whole thing away. The flowers look alive and zippy. If you scribble pastels on the background they act like a wax resist and resist watercolor pigment. So cool.

Then here is a small section of soft pastel put on first then watercolor. It makes a texture. I couldn't think of what to paint so I painted what a scanning electron microscope image of a pyrethrum flower (ovules) looks like.

When I watched the other people in the class I realized that while they were making true representations of the flowers, I was making scribbles of color. And I knew to stop. I have learned that much so far.