The Year of the Artist

I've been taking pictures for 4-1/2 years, working hard at it, learning a lot along the way.  Last year, when they had Open Studios here in Santa Cruz, I went around to see artists who were manipulating photographs.  I realized, as I looked at what they were doing, that these people knew a lot more about art than I do, so I declared it the "Year of the Artist" for me, a year in which I would learn more about different kinds of art.  I have never done any kind of art in my life (well, photography is an art), so this is just huge for me.  Starting in January, I have

• taken two drawing classes at community college, one on charcoals and the other on pastels; 
• attended a workshop on watercolor journaling; 
• bought myself some watercolors and just started painting;
• got a sketch book and began doing exercises in it;  

• taken a four-Saturday course on "Expressive Botanical Illustration";  
• now I'm taking an online course on art journaling; and
• signed up for a watercolor course that starts in a couple of weeks.

 Whew!  I'm really having a good time.  While not all the activities have been equally fun or enlightening, a lot of them have been, and I've been enjoying myself immensely.

[Linkup to Simple Pleasures and The Happiness Project]

This online art journaling class I'm doing is great -- highly recommended.  Christy Tomlinson is the teacher, and she's great -- she has good credentials in the field and the series is very professionally done -- this week, we got 28 videos to watch!  

This week has been all about materials of different kinds, and I've been at the art store every day.  She's shown us so many different kinds of things you can use, and of course I wanted to get a couple of each of them -- pan pastels, inks, pens and markers of various kinds, acrylic paints, on and on.  I am enjoying the heck out of myself.

I don't know whether anything I'm doing is "good," and I really don't care -- I am just having big fun playing around with something I've steered clear of my whole life and discovering that maybe there's something of an artist inside . . . I'm going to keep on this journey and see where it takes me.  How about you?  What artsy activities do you do?  (Yes, I know, photography . . . )