When I first bought my watercolor book of step-by-step directions on a side-by-side guide, I thumbed through the pages and wondered why they had chosen such obscure flowers. There wasn’t a rose or a daisy anywhere, yet there was a cactus and sea holly. And this bird of paradise.
And then, as I started working through the book, I realized that each painting teaches a different technique. The cactus and sea holly teach tiny little lines that look like thistle needles. The cactus pot teaches shadows in gradient colors. This bird of paradise, while I don’t love it, teaches the effects of wet-on-wet painting and how colors blend when water is used to move the paint around in an area.
I think the teacher in me needed the instructional framework spelled out, starting with the learning target, including an objective, and success criteria in little boxes to check if I accomplished it all. This is one of those examples that shows that process is more important than product – because the blending of color here in a first attempt carries into other flowers that have blending involved.
I don’t like this painting at all. But I appreciate it, because it gave me practice to be able to blend color in a hydrangea that I do like. And this is how watercolor painting is teaching me that life is like that, too. We learn skills in small attempts that transfer into other areas. Take the Karate Kid, for example. He learned Wax On/Wax Off and Sand the Floor and thought he was being used as a free worker. All along, he was preparing for that fight at the end of the movie that helped him put that blond-headed bully in an agonizing face plant down on the mat.
Looking back at the new learning gives me the reassurance that old dogs CAN learn new tricks. And even better: they can teach themselves if they can read and follow directions.
Bird of Paradise
flying just above my reach
soaring into sky
in a simple vase ~
an understated glass jar
in an upstairs loft
Common Threads 