Finally Coming Out Of My Shell!

"Coming Out Of My Shell"

 Tortoise in Watercolour

Painted on top of an experimental wash

What a day. I have been painting all day. Every single minute of it and it has been wonderful. I started the day with a hummingbird in watercolour, painted on top of  an experiemental wash. I have finished today going through my washes and I found a wonderfully overworked piece that had incredible markings on it. I studied it for a few minutes but in my imagination I could easily see a tortoise in the watercolour patterns. Then it suddenly dawned on me. I have never painted a tortoise before. And I don't seem to remember ever being asked to demonstrate one on my workshops. Which made the subject ideal as that meant I don't know the first thing about them other than that they have an interesting shell!

The nicest thing about painting on these wash exercise scraps of paper is that they are all destined for the bin and I am afraid my tortoise painting is headed there too. This was purely painted for fun as a wind down exercise to close my painting day. And what fun I have had.

I am also reading wonderful email messages tonight from readers of my books and I feel so  very happy. I also feel terrible because I cannot remember once writing to an author to tell them how much I enjoyed their book and yet here I am reading many kind messages to me. I am going to have to put that right!  Because these messages really do mean so much to me. You often lock yourself away for days on end when you are writing. And in my case I often imagine no one is actually going to read what I have written so I write in a very personal way. Allowing readers to get to know me and how I think or feel. So right now I can put my hand on my heart and say I have had the best day ever!

What is more, I cannot wait until tomorrow as I have no idea what I am going to paint then. I had no idea I would be painting a humming bird or a tortoise today. So tomorrow could see me anything at all on my easel. What fun is that!

Although. 

Perhaps I should paint a hare to go with the tortoise like that old fable. 

The tortoise and the hare!

Happy Painting!

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