Art Therapy

I had a really bad day at work. When I left at 6:15 and got in the car, I thought to myself, okay, this could go two ways:

1. You go home, eat a box of cookies, and fall into a coma in front of the television;
2. You find a way to work this mood off.

For once, I was smart and chose #2. So instead of coming home, I drove to the VNSO pool, changed into my suit, and did 40 minutes of water aerobics, which helped with both my temper and my knees. Then I stopped and picked up dinner, because even though I was working on being positive, coming home and cooking at that point was out of the question; and after dinner, instead of turning on the TV, I decided to paint.

I missed last night's painting, so I wanted to do something a little bit challenging. I liked one of Marc Taro Holmes's examples of direct-to-watercolor, which was painting the negative space around the object to make it pop on the page. So for my reference photo, I chose a subject that was mostly white, and painted the entire negative space around the outside first, before going in and filling in the few details that needed defining.

I'm pretty happy with it; some of the outline is wonky, and that back ear is a little too small. But for half an hour's work, I feel like I captured a likeness that would be recognizable to those who know, and also achieved my other objective, which was to focus so intently on this project that I didn't think about anything else for the length of time it took me to accomplish it.

And now, I'm going to go snuggle with my semi-feral cat Orwen and give her lots of love. I finally (after almost three weeks of evasion) managed to catch her tonight at dinner (she stepped too close to me for one fateful moment) and locked her in her (capacious and comfortable) cage preparatory to going to the vet tomorrow. It will be either a bandage change or a status change; either way, she needs some serious attention.

This picture is of another adoptee, my friend Susan's dog Mouse, alias Mow, alias Mischka. Her dogs, like my cats, are beloved.