Grandma and Grampa Moses

A few years ago I found this wonderful watercolor artist named Wanda Slavin who did a blog called Brush Strokes From the Heart.*

My Room by Wanda Slaven was the first of her pictures that I saw online. I use it as my profile picture on my AARP page. LOL. (With Wanda's permission)

I loved her work so much that I started to correspond with her and she was kind enough to sell me one of her pieces called "Love Comes Softly".

detail from Love Comes Softly

She is the wife of a retired preacher, living in California who has a God Given Talent that she shares on her blog. She was so flattered that I wanted to buy her print, yet everything she does is so lovely, she really should go pro. The link to her blog is permanently listed in the "Links" section on my blog. Please have a peek when you get the chance. Her work is inspiring and I have wanted to try my hand at watercolors ever since discovering her blog.

So, when Ed saw a blurb in a local advertiser about watercolor classes and he expressed some interest, I jumped on the chance to join him. It was really a perfect creative outlet for our time on Cape Cod this summer and something we could do together.

The teacher is a local artist named Pat Campbell,  She teaches the class the backroom of a lovely little gift shop along historic and quaint 6A in Dennis.

She is a very talented lady and tried to pass along some of her expertise to two less than talented beginners along with about 5 or 6 other middle aged women who were a little more experienced than we were. But we kept up, I think.

Each week Pat  would hand out prints of one of her original watercolors. We would trace the skeleton of the print onto watercolor paper. Then she would lead us step by step through the process. She told us where on the painting to begin and would teach us various techniques. In watercolors you have to be careful that what you have already painted has dried before applying the next color or there will be "blossoming" and bleeding into the other color making for a mighty mess. So, it's important to paint in a certain sequence to avoid that mishap.

Ed

Color mixing was something that Ed was a little challenged with, being color blind and all. Fortunately, he was the teacher's pet and she would help him. Ed uses very saturated colors all the time. I am more prone to using the pastels of watercolors that I am used to. I wish she had helped me some!

Sue

He was the only man in the room and I think there was a lost puppy-dog aura about him because he had never held a paint brush, except to paint a room.

Ed

Sue

Each week we painted the same pictures and it was amazing going around the room how different they all looked.

Ed

Sue

But on the last week, we had a choice of doing a lighthouse or a sailboat. The sailboat was chosen for Ed because since the first class he made it known that he wanted to do a sailboat. Being teacher's pet, his wish was Pat's command! So half the class did the lighthouse and half did the sailboat. I really liked the lighthouse and so we did our own thing on the last week. I think they came out quite well.

Ed

Sue

We had a really fun time and were excited to see upon entering the shop for our last class yesterday, the current edition of "Along 6A" was displayed. There on the front page, above the fold, was a photo of our class proudly gathered around our teacher.

All those middle aged women and Ed.

There was a nice little article, identifying each of us by name. And teacher Pat had copied the front page and had it laminated for us.

So, now, in addition to 4 pictures each to remember this summer on the cape, we also have two "place mats" to use. Actually, that just gave me an idea. I was trying to think what to do with the paintings. They aren't really wall-hanging caliber, I don't think. But they might make good place mats!


Have a great day everybody!
Love,
Suz

* After I posted this I realized Wanda had changed her blog to www.gotaminuteortwo.blogspot.com. However, her blog has changed and her artwork isn't showing up like it use to. My apologies. I have an old blog in my archives showing some of her works. It was published on May 1, 2008. Just click on the appropriate archives.