Our old barn

I went outside with the little travel gouache pallet I made out of a tin and some half pans and some water brushes and Mandy my 4 year old. I wanted to paint our old barn that sits on the back of our property. I had never used the water brushes with gouache before. They are plastic brushes that hold their own water in the handle. I went out, sat in the grass, opened my pallet and discovered that the colors had all run into each other and there was red everywhere, I must have tipped it as I was walking out back. Before I knew it there was red gouache all over my hand and my shoe and later it was even on Tommy Cat. Despite all of this I was determined to paint. It is in my larger sketchbook. This got way too wet for the paper I was using. One of these days I need to start using better paper. While I was painting Mandy took all of my water brushes and used them to "water the flowers". I eventually got them all back. Tommy Cat thought that since I was sitting down in the grass that he should climb on me and rub on my sketchbook the whole time I was painting. I am very happy with the outcome considering all of the difficulties I had along the way.

A lot of people say we should tear down the old leaning barn out back but I like it the way it is. We have been taking pieces off when we need wood for our projects. We used some to fix our other barn, and we have made a small shelf from some of the wood. Every time we get a windstorm I go check to make sure the barn is standing and so far so good. I think there is beauty in these old weathered structures that are slowly vanishing from our landscape.