Watercolours

Hi All,
It doesn't seem all that long ago that I was singing along with the Beatles track "When I'm Sixty Four," but all of a sudden I've reached that milestone. Another twelve months and I'll be drawing my pension.

I don't know about you, but the older I get, the harder it is to come up with ideas for birthday presents for myself. My wife used to buy me surprise presents but after she got me a spade, which I still ridicule her about, she insists on me telling her what I want for my birthday. So I had to make up my mind and it came down to two choices, some watercolour  painting equipment or some wood for scroll sawing. It may surprise you, but the watercolour paints won.

The biggest problem I have at the moment is sawer's block. My inspiration for making things out of wood seems to have disappeared. I'd like to make a few more boxes but I'm running out of places to put them, and to be honest, I don't like selling most of my work.

Don't worry I'm not giving up on the scroll sawing or the pyrography, but it is going to have to fight for my time against my watercolour painting ambitions. What are your watercolour ambitions you may be asking, well I tell you.

I have always been interested in art and while "When I'm Sixty Four," was in the charts, I was painting an eagle with the left over paints from a painting by numbers set that I'd had for Christmas. I also did a self portrait of myself when I was in Australia, but then life's hectic train pulled into my station and like a fool I jumped on. Courting, getting married, having kids and working all hours to pay the mortgage meant there was little time to be arty. Any spare moments where I managed to escape were spent either fishing or blotting out stress in the local.

Anyway, after getting married for the second time and the kids left home, life became more mellow. I got the urge to paint again and over the next couple of years I tried a few different mediums. I would like to say that I was a success but things didn't go to plan. I fell foul of life again and caught another train to nowhere. Promotions at work and several years studying took away my art time and events took on further complications with my redundancy and a heart attack. Then we moved into a house that would be better described as a hovel. It was one of the places any sane man wouldn't normally have touched, but it was cheap. Every room and the gardens needed doing and, although it has taken me about fifteen months, I've almost got it done.

So, peace of mind may be just around the corner, I have given myself one year to paint my heart out and see if I can do anything worth hanging on a wall. I've made a start by building a stand for my brushes out of bits of scrap wood. It incorporates a jar at the the back to hold my clean brushes and some holes at the front to hold the ones that I am currently painting with.

My wife was so jealous I had to make her one too. Who knows, I might get around to doing a painting one day soon. If I happen to produce a masterpiece with my watercolour paints I will show it to you on here and, for those who like a good laugh, I might even show you some of my disasters.