It's Never To Late

"IT IS NEVER TO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN' .....george eliot

I always wanted to be an artist.  I spent hours and hours as a kid drawing and sketching.  I attended a small rural high school, but it did not offer any any art classes. I tried going to college, but the confinement of indoors and being told what to read and conforming to the opinions of professors just wasn't for me. 

Busy raising a beautiful family, working the soil on my organic vegetable farm, milking 20 goats by hand twice a day, has taken up most of my time, but with the last of the kids off to college, I have picked up my art again.  I am struggling, but I have decided it is like anything else, the more you practice, practice, practice, practice, the better you get.

This past winter I watched birds in my yard eating the seeds from the many flower heads I left uncut for them.  I tried to sketch the ever present sparrows, but my efforts weren't very good. 

 I made a goal.

  I would make 10 drawings or paintings of a sparrow and hopefully

 by the tenth one I will have made some progress.

Sketch number one.  AUGGGHHHHH!

Well, it can only get better from here!

Sketch number 3 & 4

hopefully I have made a little progress

I am finding this difficult! 

 Why do I have an easier time painting or sketching people?

Number 5. 

 This is totally wrong.  It looks more like a hawk, or a duck, than a sparrow.  

I told my husband of my goal to paint 10 paintings of sparrows,

 hoping as each painting is completed, it will help me capture them in a more realistic way.

I should just give up, but I made a goal and I am going to persevere!

This is number seven.  Well, I think  I am finally making a little progress.

One day a flock of 20 robins spent the day in the yard.  I grabbed my acrylics (I have never painted with acrylics before, I just recently purchased a beginners set with a 40% off coupon) and tried to capture them fluttering around in the snow.  I have spring fever so I painted the background green.

Not great, but I can see I am making a little progress painting birds.

                         When my husband came home I showed him this painting and he said,

"I can tell exactly what that is............. it's a SPARROW!"

"GOOD GRIEF!"

Well, back to the drawing board

I will need another 20, or 50, or 100 drawings to get it right.

If at first you don't succeed,

try, try, again, and again, and again..................

and again.

I will keep trying.