Mountains, Trees and Mondays: On Ponds and Improvisations.

This semester I am taking a watercolor class.

At first, it was a bit daunting.
Because watercolors can be a little crafty.

(and no... no "arts and crafts" pun intended, there).

But I am very quickly discovering that using watercolors really is just getting back to my ROOTS.

I think that now I may just have to go and do a painting of roots for my next project....


But even after defeating the mountain of "I'm not really sure I like using watercolors," I one day found myself in class, completely petrified by the new mountain before me:

We were going to gather our supplies.
Walk up to the gardens.
And paint.
Outside.

(Which process is more accurately referred to as "plein air.")

Now, yes, you're probably thinking,
"but Monica... that sounds like just the kind of thing you would love to do!"

Yes. Yes it does.

Except for the part about me that gets exceedingly anxious about surprises that involve carrying things somewhere else and not knowing what to take and what to leave and feeling like I am carrying too much and am bound to drop it or lose it or find myself in some kind of unexpected circumstance and thus be faced with the choice of what to bring, what to leave, what to go back for, and in what order to do it....

My heartbeat is quickening just thinking about it.

(p.s. Yes, I DO have a hard time traveling due to these particular anxieties. Packing is... well, packing it nightmarish).

And I considered doing what half of my classmates did:
packed there stuff up, and left class early.

But I decided to be brave.
And so I grabbed my awkward-to-carry watercolor palette, my noisy and cluttered little "box" with brushes and pencils and tapes and erasers, my even MORE awkward-to-carry (and rather large) painting board, and a couple pieces of watercolor paper (which I was CONVINCED were going to somehow fly away from me and I would have to chase after them).

And I felt pretty good about my decision.

That is, until I got to the campus gardens and realized that I forgotten to bring water...
for my watercolors....

I almost panicked.

But then the adventurer in me kicked in
and I thought to myself,
"No water, huh? Well... maybe this is a good opportunity to paint a pond."

And so I found a little table and chair on a deck next to a pond.

And I... used the, uh... pond water.

Yes.
I occasionally leaned over,
stuck my little brush into that little pond,
loaded it with water,
and used it to mix up some "pond-ish" colors on my palette.

And I proceeded to paint some leaves that had sunken to the bottom of the pond.

And I really hope I gave some passerby a good laugh.

Because goodness knows, I was a bit giggly, myself.

And I came away from the experience with the satisfaction that I had done something WAY out of my comfort zone, and it ended up being quite the relaxing experience.

...as well as the resolve to go get a really small, lidded watercolor palette, a small pad of watercolor paper, a small lidded container for water, and proceed to rubber band all these things together and create a "plein air" kit.

You know, for those "plein air" emergencies.

Can you paint with all the colors of the pond?
Monica.