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Beth L. Gainer's avatar

Hi Dawn,

What a beautiful piece of prose! Like you, I love The Artist's Way. Your watercolor painting is a beauty, and I love that a flower becomes the eye of the harbor seal. I love how you incorporate just some elements of a landscape. I do the same types of things when I oil paint, using reference photos but changing up things.

I like what Kyle suggests: that perhaps you were twig that the branch trapped.

Beautifully done!

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Kyle Fisk's avatar

Dawn, I loved taking this walk with you through the turning points. Thank you for sharing it.

I love your first watercolor, and I'm fascinated by the fact that you pulled only certain elements from the photograph. When you said you based it off a photograph, my expectation was a replica, so I was surprised when it wasn't a watercolor OF the photo.

YOU were the twig trapped under that branch, immobilized by the life you were living, and YOU were also the flowers reaching for sunlight from a shadowed place. NOW, you are no longer pinned down, and you are living in the light!! Thank you so much for drawing our attention to the elements of YOUR composition.

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