Because I have so much extra time

When we were in California and I was about 7 months pregnant, I took a painting class. I’ve had every sort of art class you can imagine, but never painting. The teacher was exactly what you would expect in a California Painting class. She was all about the idea of art, rather than the actual art. In fact, she never brought in any of her own work as samples but instead had another student bring in theirs. She wasn’t much on actual instruction and I got the feeling that she at one time, had been a kindergarten teacher. The class was more a place to go and sit and paint with other people that were painting. Which in itself wasn’t a bad thing. But I did learn something of value. When you are painting, you start with the background first. You work it all up in layers. Like a chess game, you have to know which move you are making several moves in advance.

After painting clouds on the playroom ceiling, we’ve now decided to paint a mural. I know that’s ambitious with two kids, but if I try to work fast I think I might actually get it accomplished in this lifetime. Maybe even by the end of February, which is my goal.

It was hard choosing a subject. Maybe we should do a jungle scene. Maybe we should do water. Maybe we should do a Lord of the Rings mural (I REALLY thought about this one for a while), maybe we should just slap up the hill and sky default background image from Windows XP. It was a hard choice without knowing what Connor is going to be into in the next few years. So we decided on a North American mountain scene with all animals that the boys might actually see in the wild.

So we’ve started the layering. The basecoat is complete and all we need to do it get to it. I’m going to layout and draw the mural. Some of the areas Jorma is going to do and then I’ll go back and paint in the details. Some areas I’ll create little paint by numbers and Jorma can do those, while I work on other areas. If I can remember to take pictures, I’ll post them to the blog. If you want to come and help, give us a call. Maybe you can help me draw foxes that don’t look like cows.