A Watercolor a Day

I'm an accountant. I hadn't painted anything since grade school. But in March, I bought a cheap set of watercolors and a pad of paper and promised myself I would paint one small picture every day, no matter how bad it was.

The first ones were very bad. A muddy cup of coffee. A tree that looked like broccoli. My cat, who looked like a potato with ears.

I kept going. I painted the view from my window. The lemons on the counter. My husband reading on the couch. The sunset on the building across the street. Slowly, I learned how the colors bleed into each other, how to leave white space, how to let the water do the work.

By September, I'd painted two hundred pictures. I hung my favorites in the hallway. My husband says the cat-potato is his favorite. I've signed up for a class. I'm still an accountant. But now, I'm also a painter.