And that question is: What’s Karen’s been painting?

Or: What’s Karen been trying to paint?

 

From a Distance

Just your typical lounge room. Tweetdeck open in the background; television off (for once); and…oh, yes, my picture, most inconspicuously placed on the floor.

I bet you’re just dying for a closer look aren’t you? Well, sure, I can…

 

You're blocking the shot!

Hey! Riley! I know it’s captivating, but could you scooch over a little to the left please?

No?

 

Ah, there we go

Well, okay, I’ll come closer but not too close as not to scorch the eyes of our gentle readers by the glory of the picture!! (Children are seemingly immune to its radiance)

You don’t believe me? You don’t think it’s special?

 

In all its...yeah.

Okay. Fine. It’s shit. I’ll admit it. Even in my Ish-ly zen-like mood I can see that.

How?

 

watercolour

Because it’s supposed to look like this*

O- M- F- G

There is next to no similarity. I ruined mine at stage 3 and thought to myself, bugger it I’ll draw in a sunset. Just to give it a bit of extra colour, a bit of vitality. And who knows, it could end up being one of those pictures that looks up-close like a mess but from a distance it all makes sense.

Well, in my case, even if you were standing in Canada looking over the Pacific at it I doubt you’d solve its many…shall we say…mysteries.

Maybe next time, eh?

* Painting exercise taken from Jeremy Ford’s How To Paint Watercolours.

karen andrews

Karen Andrews is the creator of this website, one of the most established and well-respected parenting blogs in the country. She is also an author, award-winning writer, poet, editor and publisher at Miscellaneous Press. Her latest book is Trust the Process: 101 Tips on Writing and Creativity