When I was in High School I couldn’t wait until I could pick the electives I really wanted.  It wasn’t too hard to choose.  We had a three “tracks”.  College, Business, Vo-Tech.   I knew I wasn’t going to college.  Isn’t wasn’t something I ever considered.  Growing up, college was never discussed as an option.  My parent’s didn’t encourage it, in fact the Watchtower Society spoke against it, and it was considered a disfellowshipping offense.   It was assumed that I was going to get married and stay home, or possibly work outside of the home.  My sister was a secretary at an engineering consulting firm, and my parents seemed okay with that, so I figured I’d take business courses too and maybe do something like that.  (For a brief time I had secret dreams of being an airline stewardess, or actress/model to go and see places.  Oh, well I guess that isn’t a secret anymore is it.)  🙂

My electives involved various business classes, Accounting, German and my personal favorites of art classes and wood shop.  I also tried my hand in drama and music.  I looked forward to my art class every day.  When I was able to, I had art class daily, and shop class daily.   It was in the art class that I tried various mediums.  I was fascinated at the projects that my art teacher worked on.  Once she constructed a miniature house in the classroom (remember my fondness for miniatures?)  Not once did I think about going to an art school, or becoming an art teacher.    Please don’t think I’m saying that in a bitter way.  It’s just a fact.  It didn’t cross my mind.  It wasn’t an option that had ever been discussed or promoted in my home.  It was just the way it was.  At that time in my life, I accepted it.

I loved art class.  I loved to paint.  Particularly with oils and watercolors.

However, somewhere along the way I stopped painting until the end of last year.

We are talking a long hiatus.  Ahem, a real long time……over thirty  years.  Oh, my, I am getting old!  🙂

Anyway, Craig presented me with a gift certificate for watercolor classes last Christmas.

Well, let me tell you….my, how the quality of the paints and the paper changed from when I painted last!  I’ve learned new things too!  What a treat it has been to pick up a paintbrush again!   The class rekindled the creative spark that I had put on the back-burner for far too long, or had let others discourage.

So now I am painting again.

Thanks again, Honey, for the classes, and the continued encouragement!

I hope you don’t mind if I kind of “toot my own horn”, okay, I’ll say it, “brag”….. but I’ve just taken two pictures for entry in the State Fair!

Here is what they looked like before framing.

Yep, they took two of them!

That was a good feeling.