Okay, I know I’m a post behind on my learning project, but I have a good reason: I made an eleventh hour change to the focus of my project and had to rethink my timeline and the ways I would go about documenting my progress.
I initially planned to improve on my ukulele skills. I play a bit already, but not well and it’s a useful skill to have in the classroom as an arts ed teacher (or any teacher, really). But every time I sat down to play my ukulele, or write a blog post about it, I didn’t want to. Not that ukulele is bad, but it’s just not what my brain is interested in right now. Lately I’ve been wanting to mostly work on my watercolour painting, in part due to my annual valentine making tradition.
Backstory: In 2021, I started making homemade valentines and sending them to friends and family around the world. It was a hit – turns out people still love getting physical mail. I’ve kept up the tradition since, there are a few examples below.
Anyways, this tradition usually involves watercolour painting of some kind. As Valentine’s Day is coming up, I decided to stop fighting my intuition and just transition my learning project to improving on my watercolour skills rather than my ukulele playing.
My baseline for watercolour is mixed. I’ve dabbled in the medium for the last ten years or so, but I wouldn’t say I’m proficient. I’ve utilized it to do some university assignments and in the classroom as an arts ed teacher. See examples below, from my ESCI 310 final project last year.
For my first week, I’ve been working mainly from tutorials posted by artists on Instagram. My mom also likes watercolour, so she’s been sending me tons of cool things to try out. I’ve tried this one from Mary Wu (@mamapandapainter on Instagram), and one or two of my own based on images.
Hi Emily! oh my gosh those are so cute! I will definitely be trying this out for valentines day this year! I love using instagram for art inspiration. Pinterest is also an app I use often for this. Watercolour painting is so fun and a great skill to work on. I find it super relaxing and it gets me off my screens! If you ever have the opportunity to try Procreate (an app), I highly recommend! I bought a set of digital watercolour brushes online called aquarelle brushes version 6.0 (I think off etsy?). And whenever I am free or have a long drive (where I am in the passenger seat, of course), I like to do watercolour on my iPad!
Hello Emily,
This is such a fun idea! I am glad that you have chosen to transition from learning the ukulele to watercolour painting. The passion for this project shines through in you post. You are clearly quite good at this already so I am very interested to see where your learning project will take you. I think that the skills that you are developing here will be of great use to you in your future endeavors as an educator. Where did the idea to make Valentine’s day cards come from? I am not sure it would have crossed my mind to do this myself.
Hi Emily,
Watercolour is such a great idea! I definitely relate to the moment where you changed your mind about your learning project. I too, almost did as well. From your examples, it looks to me as if you have a pretty great handle on this medium already. Having a bit of background knowledge would help I assume. Looking forward to hearing more about your journey!
Lauren.