30 Paintings In 30 Days - Day #8 - Skating

"We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them."
      - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Its unusually cold here in Tennessee, just like it is over most of the country right now, and there are patches of ice everywhere. My daughter Aubrey has been fascinated by it all, and does not miss an opportunity to slide and spin like a little madwoman on every patch she can find.

This morning after I taught my kickboxing class she found a small patch in the parking lot and launched into her now standard spinning routine. When she was done, she looked at me and said "I wish I could go ice skating for real."

What does a dad do in a situation like that? That's easy - we jumped in the van and drove 50 miles to Knoxville and the closest ice rink!

Post by Bill Whitworth.

As I skated around the rink today with Aubrey, I thought that learning to skate, to learn to glide across the surface of the ice, is a lot like learning to paint. In the beginning, the movements of skating are short, choppy, and hesitant. Just like a beginning painters brush strokes. You are all over the ice, and slips and falls abound. Everything is painstaking and slow. Painting is the same way. No control over the brush or the paint. Lots of mistakes. And you agonize over everything.

As you improve and gain confidence though, things change. Skating motions become smoother, you glide faster and easier, and slips and falls are farther apart. In painting, the brush strokes get easier and more controlled, and the mistakes slowly decrease.

I found myself becoming hypnotized by the rhythms of my skates and the skates of the others on the ice, and was fascinated at the difference between the grooves in the ice left by the obvious beginners and the experienced skaters. Its like looking at the difference between my paintings and those of my expert friend.

Anyway, tonight when I sat down to paint, I knew I wanted to create something that involved Aubrey and skating. The interior of the rink made for a pretty dull background, so I decided to idealize the painting and make up a winter wonderland. Well, kind of. I had to stay within the boundaries of my limited skill set. 

I was fairly pleased with the final result. Nothing great, but I did not make any major frustrating mistakes. So I took the painting to Aubrey and my wife to review. And of course, my VERY literal little girl has to say "Daddy. We did NOT skate outside. We skated in a RINK. You did it WRONG!"

Sigh. The life of a dad......



Aubrey Skates

Hmmm, its strange - the scanner REALLY picked up the texture of the watercolor paper this time. I have not seen that before.......