Passing the Time

In my month (plus) of not working I’ve been trying to think of things to pass the time other than boxing and watching TV. I love the idea of creating a project – something I can work on all summer towards some sort of end product. Now, I don’t see myself as the most creative person so I’ve actually done internet searches to try come up with something I can work on. Naturally my searches have given me nothing. I do have some project ideas I would like to work on that I have in my 43 Things, but they mostly require things I don’t have and can’t afford, or things I do have but are still in my apartment in Aurora.

My conclusion was that I should start painting again. I’m not much of an artist. The things I draw are pretty much copying (not tracing) things that have already been drawn. And I’m not much of a painter. My paintings come from an assignment I had to do in grade 8, which was basically paint an image from a children’s story book over a washed out background. I still have that painting. I don’t remember the name of the book but I do remember that it had something to do with the horses on the merry-go-round at a carnival coming off and flying in the sky.

Here’s a close up on my favourite horse.

  Other paintings I’ve done are in the same style.

“Solo” – May 2004”Standing Tall” - May 2004

I tend to like this style. It’s simple and if done right, can be elegant, and let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to do.

This one is my most recent. I’ve yet to decide if it’s done or not. I also have yet to title it.

I like this plan also because it’s a fairly cheap hobby. I buy all my materials from the dollar store. May not be the best quality paint or canvas but I’m not the best quality painter so no complaints here. I’ve been using acrylic paint because it’s cheap but I also found small tubes of oil paint that I plan to experiment with.

I do have some project ideas though that I feel can work out. One is to “save a perfectly good piece of furniture from someone's garbage, clean and sand it down if necessary and paint it in fun colours” from my 43 Things list. I grabbed this shelf, not technically from the garbage… but it would have been to the garbage if no one took it. I even started painting it a base white.

Again, it’s a cheap project because all I have to do is buy the paint and brushes. I will have to buy some paint tape as well to make sure I get crisp corners but that won’t be too expensive.

My second project is to do 10 assignments from Learning To Love You More, which is also on my 43 Things list. I haven’t started any of those yet but I’ve been thinking of the ones that I want to do.

From the way things have been going the past month, I hadn’t been to optimistic about how the rest of the summer will go, but hopefully this will help me through.