Watercolour

After a thousand watercolors you will find you have fallen in love with paper and paint. ~Rex Brandt

I wish I was more of an artist.

I took four years of Artistics in high school, but even that was barely enough to scratch the surface of the things I wish I knew.

My favourite medium is watercolour.

It's more than just a damp horsehair brush rubbed against the caked colour pallets.

It's something deeper...richer...more powerful.

There's more to a watercolour painting than first meets the eye.

The colours run, blend, combining together into something far more than the artist could ever have originally anticipated.

That's why my heart races at the sight of a watercolour canvas. You can't always plan ahead. You can't always see the future.

The colours have lives of their own, dancing and flooding together...as if they too had minds and hearts and souls.

I'm blessed to have a watercolour life.

A life that is more than what I can see at first glace...beautifully composed by the most incredibly talented Artist this world has ever known.

I'm a canvas.

Cover me in watercolour.

I really think that everyone should have watercolors, magnetic poetry, and a harmonica. ~The Perks of Being a Wallflower

S'ensuivre (Follow)

I know I've already posted today. Maybe I need to break this habit of posting more than once a day.

But in all honesty, this topic has been brewing in my mind for quite some time now. And after reading today's post on Jocee's blog, my heart's whisperings have been confirmed.

Blogging is not a popularity contest.

I don't know when the focus shifted from beautiful words and stunning photography...just enough to make you catch your breath and really thing...to the pursuit of comments and high follower counts.

It has stopped becoming a place of elegance, of soul and depth.

It's become high school all over again.

The ones with the most followers are the ones to know, if you're lucky enough for them to cast your gaze over you.

Please understand --  I know I'm generalizing a bit here, as there are so many of you who have the most beautiful hearts that only amplifies your popularity.

I'm not saying that having hundreds of  followers or a high view count is a bad thing. Not at all. It's a very nice thing, I will admit.

But this is my point.

Blogging is not a contest. 

It's not a war to be won, or a status symbol to be proclaimed. 

50 followers or 5,000. 

Since when did it start to matter so much? 

I won't lie and say that it doesn't feel amazing when I see my follower list increasing, or when I read more and more comments flooding a certain post...or that it doesn't sting when my numbers go down, or my page views decrease. 

But I don't understand why. 

I just want to write. I just want to sing. I just want to paint my watercoloured poetry across this tiny corner of canvas I've been given. 

...since when did that become not enough? 

It's about light. 

It's about words.

It's about friendship.

It's about Him. 

Be my friend or don't. Follow me or don't. Read my blog or don't. It's starting not to matter anymore.

But I will be your friend.

Regardless. 

Sunkissed

"Four things I would have been the better without: love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt." ~Dorothy Parker

I don't tan.

As much as I would love to sport beautiful skin like that of my peers, I simply do not possess the talent.

The closest I have ever been to "tanned" was the summer that I was eighteen...and only after spending hours in a tanning bed to lightly change my skin tone for my aunt's wedding.

I simply do not tan.

I burn. And I freckle.

The freckles have been my "gift" since I was very little. A light smattering of these tiny brown spots have covered my body from nose-tip to toes ever since I was old enough to gaze at my own pale arms in wonder at the marks I beheld.

And now, today, after spending a day in the gaze of the sun, my nose and cheeks are the faintest hint of red, and my face and arms now sport even more of these all-too familiar "beauty marks."

Freckle-faced dreamer
Photo by: DramaticElegance

Perhaps it has something to do with my "Snow White" complexion and hair...or maybe it is the barest reminder of the redheads in my family, and my own natural auburn highlights that compliment my own chocolate brown locks.

Or maybe I'm just over-analyzing the natural pigmentation of my own skin.

Either way, freckles are my own summertime souvenirs.

They are graffiti that I wear...summer was here.

They are my sunkisses....pastel skin and watercolour beauty marks.

And honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way.


Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson