More progress on the vegetable still life.  Comparatively, painting a face or a complicated street scene is much easier, I think, than painting a simple vegetable. For that reason, I'm enjoying this. I'm applying the washes and getting a sense of the detail. Still using big brushes for this. And for some reason, my monitor has taken to an occasional flickering that removes all of the red and leaves only blue/green. Which makes a red pepper look more like an eggplant. I hope to finish this during the weekend. I have all five kids this weekend, and they like watching me paint. You know, when I'm programming, I'm not social at all. But when I'm painting, I actually like talking with people while I paint. Jacob and I discussed the finer points of silent "e" as I painted. He was reading a book, and the notion of long and short vowels is a new concept. He's in kindergarten, and his progress in reading this year has been wonderful. So he sits in the chair next to me and makes comments as I paint ("Dad - that's pink. I don't think it's pink like that in the picture.") And reads a snippet or two from his book. Or asks about words that are complex. Later, we'll probably watercolor together. One of my favorite books - just to look at - is The Treehouse Book. And we're not talking little simple treehouses... no, we're talking houses in a tree.  Now that's a treehouse.  I find this sort of thing very appealing. | 
