Thursday, April 09, 2009

The art of life


Today is Thursday. I have a list of things to do the length of my arm. I have accomplished maybe half of them. This morning I decided to throw the "need to" out the window & spend some fun time with my kids. We went to a kids museum, where they went art crazy as though we hadn't spent the morning up to our elbows in markers & crayons. I guess it's always better when it's someone else's supplies. I felt that way for a long time. My grandma is an artist (one of many in my family) and she always made sure I had art supplies. But it wasn't until high school that I started getting the good stuff: windsor & newton watercolors, prismacolor colored pencils, liquitex acrylic paints.
I've been doing watercolors again--they make for excellent backgrounds & small space fillers. And I have the giant John Pike palette, with many little rectangles filled with colors arranged chromatically. But the watercolor set that I keep coming back to, the one that I reach for first is the one that my grandma gave me for Christmas in 1994. It's a Windsor & Newton travel set. It has 12 tiny (8 ml) tubes of paint, and a #2 round brush, and the lid flips open to become your palette. Folded closed the whole thing is about the same dimensions of a business envelope. I'm not sure why it is my favorite--maybe because it was my first real set of tools, maybe because I made sure to toss it in my backpack every day for 4 years.
It isn't often that I am completely certain about something, but I am certain that I will use & treasure this set until the day it falls beyond repair.

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