Rebecca gets a new hobby
by Rebecca on 2009-04-18
I havenʼt had a real hobby since … well, now that I think about it, I donʼt think Iʼve ever had a serious hobby, unless you count playing with Barbies and that stopped when I was … never mind. Anyway. High time for me to get a hobby, right?
Does anyone remember President Uchtdorfʼs talk from the Relief Society meeting? Iʼve had that rattling around in my head since he gave that talk.
The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.
Well. Hard to argue with that, except how was I going to tap into that potential? I decided to take a watercolor class through the University of Texasʼ community education program. I found a five-week course for a reasonable price. The instructor has an MFA (serious creds) and I figured that it would be time and money well spent if it motivated me to get a new hobby and give me a chance to create. It started at the end of March and meets once a week for 2 hours on campus in the Art Building. My classmates are all about where I am: wanting to learn something new and curious about venturing into the semi-terrifying world of painting and needing a hand to hold us through. The teacher is really good at that. He keeps saying, “Just make your mistakes and learn from them. Thatʼs what this class is all about. It doesnʼt have to be perfect, as long as youʼre learning.”
I could go on and on about how much fun Iʼm having, how artsy my teacher is (he even wears these old school 80ʼs Ray-Bans glasses. Cool.), how great my classmates are, how I really like squeezing out paint onto my little palette and mixing the heck out of it, or how when Iʼm at work, I think about things that I could be painting. But I wonʼt. Iʼll just put a picture of my most recent creation here.
This is based on the print of one of my favorite skirts that no longer fits me. (But it will fit again, hopefully around mid-September. Please?)
Now, I donʼt think that Iʼm headed for selling stuff on Etsy any time soon, but Iʼll try to post more pictures of the paintings that I finish. My last class is this week (sadness) but I think Iʼll be able to keep it up, at least until I can take my next class in the fall. (William has already said that heʼll watch the baby so I can go paint. Yay!)