A friend has laid out a great challenge to kick off 2015.
When I can, I am taking her cues because she’s created a great list.  Thoughtful, they are evoking memories in most who are playing along.  A challenge shouldn’t be just a list — but a list that has makes you think!  This list requires interpretation!

The first prompt was things you should throw away but can’t!  I have too many sentimental items like this, and I can de-clutter all I want but these will stay until
I am no longer!  Deciding was difficult but time pushed me to make it quick!
I had about 15 minutes to create this entry. . .

A favorite book?  Too many I’ve read more than once, so hard to choose.
I finally went with the one that now has a rubber band to hold it together: Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving Kindness by Chogyam Trungpa!

I love that I have my painting desk set up right behind my office.  I can work on a bid
or estimate or report, turn around and add a bit of color, then turn again and keep working while it dries.  Gives me a reward when I don’t want to be sitting at the computer!
This was painted in that manner, while I was working on accounting . . .
The commitment to journaling every day is a habit I can now keep, painting my world.

Not part of the challenge, but thinking of memories, I pulled my grandmother’s
broken floral vase to paint.  It’s held peacock feathers for as long as I can remember.
Some she gave me, and I know that the intense color of the peacock was a wonder
to her eyes.  She paid attention to details in the way people did when to
buy an object was a rarity, and to take a walk was not exercise but a chance to see the critters and blooms and bugs and snakes around the ranch and at other times, her neighborhood.  The broken neck and handle was probably an accident of one of my brothers or cousins; it reminds me of the hurt parts of her I knew well.

I took the vase and tried sketching it two ways.  The first was with guidelines
in watercolor pencil followed by waterproof ink, followed by watercolors, above.
Below, I went in again, for fun, and did the details of the bowl using just watercolors.

Painted images in Stillman & Birn Alpha journal with Pitt Pens, and
Platinum Preppy fountain pen and Noodlers ink.
Daniel Smith, Holbien, Sennelier and QoR watercolor paints.

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