Being at home
Feeling comfortable where you are is key to feeling at home.
You might really be at home, but could equally be someplace else in the world that feels like home - a place in the spirit - as in my inspiration for this blog.
Being in a snowy place for a second winter has been interesting. There’s been less snow and not so extreme temperatures (aside from a couple of episodes), so the roads have been clear, much more than last winter, making driving much more familiar to me, as a resident of non-snowy places for most of my life.
But there’s still been plenty of reliable snow to ski on — the trails are groomed almost daily in our nearby national park and in our nearby city’s greenway/ski ways.
So it’s all been good as our 2-month winter sojourn is in its final couple of weeks.
We’ve loved being here in our historic cottage with the wood stove burning; it looks like we’ll actually run out of the regular split wood before we return to NC and will be burning small stuff for awhile (I think that’s all good, since the old wood is full of allergy-triggers!). I’m looking forward to burning “new” wood next winter.
In my acrylic painting class for the last three weeks, I’ve dutifully sat myself down in the small meeting space of the English language resource center where I also volunteer weekly.
There’s no natural light in that room, which I miss. It’s fine when I volunteer as I’m out in front, where there’s bit of light from the lower level casement windows — and I get up and move around frequently, too.
And sitting for that long is hard, too. I like to move around!
But, I’ve been quite pleased with the results.
Three afternoon stints of painting an image from an old pharmacy calendar that reminded me of our historic cottage in the colors and setting (our teacher had us select something to use that she brought as inspiration for our painting)— well, I surprised myself, and certainly NEVER would have done this one on my own, as I wouldn’t have had the patience nor the determination to sit and work on any sort of art for all of that time.
Acrylic is an interesting medium as it dries relatively quickly, but is “correctable,” unlike watercolor, as you can paint back over things you don’t like or want to correct. Quite nice, actually.
I turned the mountains back from a Rocky Mountain look (on the first day) into a more Quebec look (by the second day of work). Much more appropriate. And, I managed to do some shadowing on the snow, etc. that seemed to fit on my third day of effort.
This will go in an empty frame here; my gardening companion has been wanting me to paint something that would fit it. (Nice to have the encouragement!)
This piece is just right for “being at home,” even though this maple sugaring scene depicts a much larger place than ours.
You might really be at home, but could equally be someplace else in the world that feels like home - a place in the spirit - as in my inspiration for this blog.
Being in a snowy place for a second winter has been interesting. There’s been less snow and not so extreme temperatures (aside from a couple of episodes), so the roads have been clear, much more than last winter, making driving much more familiar to me, as a resident of non-snowy places for most of my life.
But there’s still been plenty of reliable snow to ski on — the trails are groomed almost daily in our nearby national park and in our nearby city’s greenway/ski ways.
So it’s all been good as our 2-month winter sojourn is in its final couple of weeks.
We’ve loved being here in our historic cottage with the wood stove burning; it looks like we’ll actually run out of the regular split wood before we return to NC and will be burning small stuff for awhile (I think that’s all good, since the old wood is full of allergy-triggers!). I’m looking forward to burning “new” wood next winter.
In my acrylic painting class for the last three weeks, I’ve dutifully sat myself down in the small meeting space of the English language resource center where I also volunteer weekly.
There’s no natural light in that room, which I miss. It’s fine when I volunteer as I’m out in front, where there’s bit of light from the lower level casement windows — and I get up and move around frequently, too.
And sitting for that long is hard, too. I like to move around!
But, I’ve been quite pleased with the results.
Three afternoon stints of painting an image from an old pharmacy calendar that reminded me of our historic cottage in the colors and setting (our teacher had us select something to use that she brought as inspiration for our painting)— well, I surprised myself, and certainly NEVER would have done this one on my own, as I wouldn’t have had the patience nor the determination to sit and work on any sort of art for all of that time.
Acrylic is an interesting medium as it dries relatively quickly, but is “correctable,” unlike watercolor, as you can paint back over things you don’t like or want to correct. Quite nice, actually.
I turned the mountains back from a Rocky Mountain look (on the first day) into a more Quebec look (by the second day of work). Much more appropriate. And, I managed to do some shadowing on the snow, etc. that seemed to fit on my third day of effort.
This will go in an empty frame here; my gardening companion has been wanting me to paint something that would fit it. (Nice to have the encouragement!)
This piece is just right for “being at home,” even though this maple sugaring scene depicts a much larger place than ours.
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