A new year - out of the comfort zone

After taking some time away from my blog - yes, the holidays and their priorities do come first - it's time to get back to some art.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas I had an opportunity to substitute in the watercolor class again. We were trying new techniques to get us all out of our comfort zones.  You know, when I am told that I do NOT have to come up with a 'pretty picture' - that it's really okay just to 'play' with the paint and paper - it is very freeing.

I started out with wet paper and a limited palette - that is, just a few colors.  I dripped, blew the paint around with a straw, spattered, and threw in some darks. The hardest thing was trying to reserve some whites. Once I got started doing this I just wanted to cover the whole thing.  Well, this is what happened!

The photo is a little unclear, but perhaps you can tell that I did have fun!