Playing with Paint

 

I found a new creative outlet.

  The Paint program on my computer has given me joy this past week.  During my first year in business I wanted so much to have graphics that showed what Knees and Paws are.  I was not able to really capture this in photographs of my models.  I sat here wishing for a solution to this problem, not realizing that every day I had what I needed to make this a reality.  Thank goodness I decided to "play" as a way to problem solve.  I know, I'm a little slow.  But it was worth the wait.  The day that I made this graphic, I plugged my headphones in and listened to my favorite songs by Rob Thomas and Edwin McCain.  The feeling of making visual art is an incredible anti-depressant.  I knew this already but I did not know that creating designs on the screen had the same effect as drawing and painting on paper.

Sylvie from Jewett's A White Heron

  I found comfort during illness this winter by painting a scene from my favorite short story, A White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewett.  I've often thought about writing an adaptation of this story for children as a picture book.  Now that I've spoken that secret desire, I'm sure that a very talented writer and illustrator is somewhere working on it.  The story is so beautiful that I read it aloud to Elliot during our Big Back Yard Bird Count lessons.  He was amazed to learn that Orinthologists used to shoot and kill birds in order to study them.

If you've never read this classic American short story, I highly recommend it.  There's something magical in Jewett's way of capturing rural New England and the heart of a child who cannot be bought;  a child who is so much a part of the natural world that she cannot be persuaded to reveal its secrets.