Oooops......!

     If you have ever hiked in the beautiful Rocky Mountains or some other similar terrain, you probably know what about scree.  For those of you who prefer staying at sea level, here's what scree is.  It is a mass of small loose stones that form or cover a slope on a mountain.  I experienced the "joy" of scree while attempting to climb Long's Peak in Colorado one August day.  If you have the misfortune of slipping on a large patch of scree, you are at the mercy of the pebbly landslide until your downward descent looses steam at a leveling off area.  Then comes the tricky, slippery-slide ascent with several more smaller descents tucked in just for "fun".

      Here comes the metaphor....life has many opportunities to experience scree in our work, health, relationships, and plans.  And I experience my share of them in creating artwork.  Understatement!  Here's a fresh example.  Last week I worked on a small watercolor painting of a dog and adhered it to a piece of wood as a backing.  After the drying and varnishing process, I discovered to my dismay that some of the adhesive buckled and wasn't going to be fixable.  This had happened on more than one painting.  So I ended up ripping the dog painting off the wood mount and took two smaller pieces of plain watercolor paper and tried a different adhesive as a test.  I decided to have some fun with it despite the messed up painting and getting the papers even glued crooked under the weight I used to press down on the painting.  This botched up project will be my own little reminder hanging here in my studio.  So here it is...

     And here is a peek at the dog watercolor painting before it got pulled up.  It was going to be titled "Keeping a Rein on Things".  I may go ahead and develop this one into a larger work down the road.  In the meantime, watch your step around the scree!