Naming myself Artful Magpie was really more than just a cute shop name for my photography, I think. Magpies are well-known to be hoarders, attracted to anything shiny and forgetting the last wonderful thing in favor of the next one, ha. With few exceptions, that's how I've been most of my life, at least when it comes to creative endeavors.
When I was a kid, I took sculpture classes and watercolor classes. I never really excelled at either and gave up both hobbies. In high school, I wrote poetry, along with just about every other teenage girl in the history of teenage girls. I dabbled in short stories for a while, and have written the first chapters of at least three different novels...but never finished one of them. More recently, I played with Precious Metal Clay jewelry-making until we got a cat and I could no longer leave out my projects while they dried. I switched to making jewelry out of beads and such, but the lack of a good permanent workspace killed that one, too.
And just a few days ago, while at a craft shop buying a frame for a print of one of my pictures, I impulse-bought a pack of 4x6 watercolor paper, along with watercolor pencils and some brushes. I haven't opened them up yet, but I definitely intend to! I have grand plans for making impressionistic washes of color that suggest flowers and other such things, without being in the least realistic or overly detailed. That was always my problem with art before...the devil's in the details, as they say, and my fingers simply aren't smart enough to draw them out. But just for fun, doodles made in the watercolor pencils and then finished off with washes of water over top to blur the pigments together...it seems fun and simple and calming, all at the same time.
Who knows how long this one will last, though? It seems like photography is the only creative hobby that's really "stuck," so far...and I know a lot of that is due to the support and shared enthusiasm of my wonderful husband, as well as the great community of fellow photogs I've met on Flickr!
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