I've gotten into watercolor!

I've started doing watercolors and I love it!  I'm not one of those fussy watercolorists that paint flowers that look so really you can smell them.  Sorry.  I've gotta be me with my crazy brain!

I find more and more that I can have so much fun with the freedom of watercolor.  Free to be as whimsical as I want!

This was from a sketch I did at least 15 years ago.  See why it's important to keep all your sketchbooks.  You never know what will strike you as fun in the future.

I have a lot of people that are really interested in cards and I've been testing which ones they like the best.  This little kitty is well loved and it's going to be my first test card.

I really like the calm feeling of this one!

Another favorite image that I had no idea what it was going to turn out like.

Talk about freedom!  Freedom from a ruler.  But I have found that so many really love the painterly aspects of something like this.  If you compare it to my house paintings on the side of my blog you can see that I really know how to tighten up.  These are some homes along the Hudson River in NYC that my daughter loves.

I've just been a painting fool and it's been wonderful!  I'm loving every minute of it even if I have to rip up and start over.  As I told you much earlier in my blog that you can always do that.....throw away that painting that you hate but be sure you think hard about doing it.  Maybe there's an area that you love.  Cut it out!  With enough room to restretch it.  Oh how I wish I would have done that with some of my earlier paintings but it's too late.

And just for the fun of it and we are coming up on the holidays.  I'm reposting my little acrylic Christmas painting that I love everything about (you may not agree-that's okay!).

Sometimes you just need a little calm in your life

Autumn trees at our cabin-Julie Jacobsen 2017 copyright

While thinking of what I wanted to talk about tonight I thought about all the terrible violence that has happened within the last year in our country.  I really do despise guns and they are playing a starring role in my consternation lately.  Why, oh, why.  That's what I keep asking the space around me.  Why do we have to have something as destructive as guns?  In the hands of the wrong people they can ruin lives and not just the ones that are shot-not even just their direct family and friends-but all of us.  Are we going to have to start worrying about wherever we go?  Lately in my daily prayers I've been including a special one about our grandchildren.  Are they going to be in a place where they can be harmed by one of these maniacs that our society can't control?  Are the adults I love and care about so much going to be in a bad place where evil will strike again.

Is it worth it?  Worth ruining lives just so certain gun owners can have the novelty of shooting round after round in rapid succession?  When is this craziness going to end?  What will it take?  I remember when people were hijacking planes and we all were terrified that it could happen to any of us setting foot on a plane.  And we thought that could be the worst thing?  Not even.

So, today I choose to post a calm painting where we can pull ourselves in among the beauty of calming nature.  Wouldn't it be so lovely if we all could sit at a picnic table in this painting and open up a box of clay.  You know.  The kind that comes in 4 colors.  All we have to think about is whether we're going to make a turtle or a dog.  Or maybe what we're going to have for an afternoon snack afterwards.  I used to love to just take a blanket outside in the backyard when I was little and have my quiet time there.  One time I read an Oz book and had a big hunk of cold iceberg lettuce.  All I did was read about the land of Oz and munch on this crunchy wonder while I smelled the fresh grass, felt a warm breeze, and looked up every once in a while at our hawthorn tree that had little bouquets of pink flowers.  

Now that's what we all need right now.  Calm.  We loved spending a lot of our summer at our hillbilly cabin in the Uintah mountains.  It really is rough and not much to do in the way of city entertainment.  But we loved it so much!  It was so peaceful and we got to see lots of wildlife.  I can't wait for next summer when we can be back there to pause and know that life doesn't have to be scary all the time.