Ok! Everybody that has a summery fish windsock hanging from the ceiling fan in your living room, raise your hand!

looking around to see how many hands are raised

😂

I didn't know what the title of this post should be. It was quite a burden to figure it out. When I put the title in of this post, I then wondered if folks might think I mean as in people's titles, you know, like me being the QUEEN of my castle with the word "castle" being used quite losely, but that is not it. It was simply that I didn't have a title and I didn't want to bruise my brain thinking one up.

Now that we're clear on that.....

I've been doing the usual, working, chores, visiting my Mom and my other favorite two things, doing nothing and playing at my art desk.

Last night for no apparent reason, I decided I might want to find my water color box and play in that. Normally I use acrylic paint and I am not a snob about paints, the acrylics are just my paint of choice. I found my paint box pretty quickly even though I haven't used them in .... forever. I bought them one time on a whim because they remind me of my childhood, even though I don't remember any of my childhood boxes having this many colors in it.

It turns out I also have this new Round stencil template that I saw a YT artist use and immediately thought I had to have one. 🤣 Therefore I acquired one soon after. I have all kinds of stencils that have all sizes of circles, but I didn't have this one and I liked it's small size with varied sized circles all on the same little piece. I spoil me so bad that I am just sure one day I will have trouble with myself. Don't say I didn't try to warn me.

So! I drew many circles on this half piece of music paper and painted them in with my water colors. Of course we couldn't leave it at that and I had to randomly add more colors in some of the spaces on the music staff. I thought it was colorfully happy when it was done.

Did I forget to mention that I may have bought some new stencils too? I was just sure I needed more to add to the obscene amount I have already.

This morning the watercolors and new stencils were on my desk, so I played with some of them, laying a stencil on top of a piece of paper and then swirling some colors over top of them here and there. It was fun. I expect to try to use them for collage papers, tearing them up for who knows what kind of art. Since watercolor can reactivate when wet, I don't know if that will be folly, but I will find out soon enough.

The other morning I had about 5 more minutes to waste before I clocked into work, so I stood at my art table, balled up some different papers, put them in a tray and dropped various colors of acrylic ink on them I left it like that to dry in the day, wondering if they would make fun papers. After dry and pulled back open, I wasn't impressed with the outcome, but that didn't keep me from loving this photo of them that I took while they were scrunched up and sitting in the tray.

It did make me wonder though if there should be a piece of art where there were many of these painty bunches glued onto a board (or the such) and that this would actually BE the art. I dunno, it may one of those quickly passing ideas, but who knows?

So now that I've made most of my post about fiddling with my water color paints, here is something that I wrote down on my brown paper that is on my art table where I play that I heard in a YT vid.

"Noticing what is already here is harder than wishing for more"

It was so simple and so true. It was one of those things that make you stop for a minute or two and contemplate. I thought it was worthy of being written on the brown paper.

I have always tried to be intentionally grateful for what I have and recognize all the good about the life I have. It is still good to get reminders now and then, to keep it all in perspective.

Before I close, I just wanted to share this wonderful photo of toasted buttery bread. Very simple and yet still a very, very happy thing. In the moment, it just didn't seem possible to get any better than this.

Hope everyone is doing well and that you have enough.

Love you!

Jacey