Category: babysitting

Awaiting the Princess

I’m waiting for The Princess to arrive this morning. Tuesday is my day to play! I am ready. I could get the chance to paint at some point, but not counting on it. The Princess takes ten minute naps for the most part. As you know, I could make a short time limit work, but maybe not just ten minutes. The equipment is ready just in case the nap is a little longer than I expect.

Everything The Princess needs is ready too: formula, bottle, bowl, spoon, and toys! She is now five months old and learning to eat cereal. So, okay, most of it comes out when I try putting it in, but I can get   it to go right back in! No problem, but if she eyeballs the spoon we’re in trouble. She’s smart. She knows what’s coming with that spoon and she’s not sure if she likes it.

Things are done differently these days. When my kids were babies we started solid food with a ripe, mushed up banana. Now, due to dietary ideas on obesity and the like, the doctors recommend cereal first, not to begin with the sweet stuff. But the sweet stuff gives them the idea that what’s coming on the spoon might be something they may want to taste.

Whatever the routine is today, I am happy to oblige. Tell me what to do and I’ll just do it. No issues here, just happy to see that squishy baby girl! Baby beats out painting any day. Yup.

Don’t Paint in the Dark

Where do the days go?  It seems I’m awake at dawn and suddenly it’s time to sleep again.  What happened in the middle?  It’s dark too early now, too.

My days with the Princess are done for this week.  As I have some things to do on alternate Thursdays, she’ll be visiting her other grandmother tomorrow.  I will definitely miss having her with me.  She’s such a comfortable baby, not a complainer at all so she is wonderful to watch her.  And she smells really good!

Monday and Friday I have off from sitting with her so those days I try to get my own stuff done.  When will I try to have an Artist’s Date?  Who knows.  Some where in those off days if I plan it right.

Since I’ve been trying to keep up with The Twenty Minute Challenge I think that’s the way to go for now.  So while the Princess takes a quick nap, I run to do 20 minutes of watercolor painting.

Yesterday was a day that she was awake for a long while.  We looked at dots, which she is fascinated by, talked to each other, had some tummy time, and had lunch together, sort of.  Wide awake and alert, there wasn’t much time for me to paint most of the day.  After Gorgeous came to take the Princess back home I ran some water in a tub and took out the paints.  Just arranged the same items that are hanging around and started painting. Mind you, it was already 4PM!  By the time I got going the sun was on it’s way down and I tried to work quickly.

Oh well, I did what I could in the twenty minutes I allotted for painting.  Too much water and not enough dry surface so the paints ran.  It’s fine.  I told myself that it’s the process that counts.

The Princess has left for the day and I decided to return to this painting.  Now that it’s dry I tried to clean it up, make it neat, and worth showing.  Next time I need to paint earlier in the day because painting in the dark isn’t much fun.

Pebbles and Leaves (c)2010 DST 7×10 Watercolor

Equipment is Essential

Every job has it’s essential tools.  As artists, we must have implements that help us do our job.  The right brushes or pencils, paints of all sorts, surfaces and surroundings, allow us to be somewhat successful at what we do.  We can get along with substandard equipment, but for how long?

What do I mean by substandard?  I know I can get along very well with non-professional equipment if I just think about the process of creating art.  Will I be thrilled with the result is another story.  As I go along this art journey I’ve learned that having the better supplies makes the journey easier.  Knowledge is power, as they say these days.  I know I should have signed up for those iMac classes when I purchased this computer, as an example, because using it wouldn’t have been such an uphill climb.

Same thing with art supplies.  Except that sometimes we can over indulge and end up going overboard.  Like those watercolor paints I bought a while back.  I always used tried and true Windsor & Newton paints or Grumbacher.  The colors were what I expected in these companies, but I was lured to MaimeriBlu and now I’m not so happy with them.  Through the wonderful blog commenters I have stepped up to a better watercolor surface though.  Now I’m very happy using Arches papers.  I’m learning.

The down side is that now I have plenty of MaimeriBlu paints and I would rather paint from my teeny travel set of Windsor & Newton half pans.  I love how the former paints look on the paper, but the latter colors are exactly what I expect.  Alizarin Crimson in MaimeriBlue is not the same hue or strength as in the other company’s paints.  Okay, so I’ll just have to live with it for now.

Which leads me to my new venture.  Tomorrow is Day One and I think I have the equipment I need.  Take a look at this:

This is the carriage I used when Son #1 was a baby.  Twenty eight years ago there was no sparing any expense for that precious newborn.  Remember Perego carriages?  Who uses this kind of thing today?  Nobody!  I used it for a while with Son #2 and then that was it, we went to those little umbrella strollers.  This carriage is a classic!  It’s practically brand new the way I kept it covered up and put away.  I wish my mother could have kept my carriage.  Now that was a piece of equipment.  It was so big that my mother would go food shopping with my sister in it and have room for bags of groceries.  You can’t find those anymore, but I kept this one.

Tuesday is the day.  Our princess will be with me a few days a week and with her other grandmother a few days a week so Gorgeous can return to her job.  The weeks flew by and things are what they are.
If the weather is good we’ll be taking a nice walk.  I’ve got the equipment!