The second year of my arts program has been underway for a month now, how time gets out of one’s grasp. While I process the previous weeks for you, here’s just a few thoughts and snaps from over the summer.

At the start of summer, I’d set what I thought was a modest goal - play freely with color, and representational art. I’d not done a lot of just-draw-the-thing. I’d not done a lot of “pretty” drawings. That’s such an important stepping stone in art making - just doing the straightforward, should you want to move past it eventually.

My previous experiments with paints showed that I can be blocked just by the act of mixing paints, and targeting colors. I bought a box of pastels, so that mixing wouldn’t be an issue. And, to be honest, as I look at more and more modern paintings, I think a lot of them use colors straight from the tube. This need not be a prerequisite to making nice things.

And so, here are some examples of things made, fun had. While one almost always wishes they did something more diligently in hindsight, I can see already a comfort with color I didn’t have before, and a confidence in my play.