I should also have mentioned that my “exercise book” is “Bee” brand watercolour paper, which is not top of the line (that would be Arches and Fabriano Artistico), but more affordable, and it gets decent online reviews. I bought the 5.5 x 8 inch spiral bound book of 140 lb %100 cotton, which has 30 sheets in it; I use…

I’m in Canada, so have no idea about specifics, but you might want to contact whatever institution that you have your loans with, to ask about it, or the government program itself (always a pain to deal with government agencies). It might be better to be proactive, rather than wait and find out that, oops; you were…

You need to watch some videos of animals adopting babies of other species; that always makes me feel a bit better. Or Dean and Nala always make me feel better; Dean is biking around the world and found a tiny kitten in Bosnia. The rest is history;

You’re welcome! From what I’ve heard from these professional artists, a lot of beginners have a lot of difficulty at first, and blame themselves for lack of talent and skill, and it’s actually the paper. Steve Mitchell did a video comparing a high quality pulp paper with cotton, and the difference in control was…

It’s true about the drawing and sketching, and when I was in high school, I would just draw, and draw and draw; it was one of those “flow” activities for me. Then I started university, then grad school, then working ... and it fell away. I’m trying to get it back, and I do have several sketchbooks for just warming up…

You’re welcome! I got mine out at 3 years old, and my memories are positive ones about eating ice cream and painting with sparkle paints. 

Thank you!

I was shocked when I bought my first set of pan paints at the brilliance and saturation of the pigments; I had been remembering the watercolours and chalky tempera paints we used in school. Then I bought some tubes ...

They both add moisture, but not much flavour to the cake, which in the case of the sauerkraut is surprising.

I guess the mothers had a whole secondary set of kitchen housewares to pull out during the holidays.

I used to make peanut butter and sweet relish sandwiches, so I’m on side with your husband.

We need another paradigm; the old one isn’t working. Up here in Canada, the Universal Basic (or Living) Income is gaining some traction. If everyone had enough money to cover housing and food, or at least part of it, then working would allow people to, a) save for a rainy day without worrying as much about an…

Thank you!

Thank you! Will do.

See my reply to Uppity, for some youtube resources, and you can just search for “watercolour painting”, to bring up some wonderful youtube channels. For books, I just borrowed every book on beginner watercolour that I could lay my hands on from the library, which depending on whether your system is open, may or may…

I’ve just borrowed every book on beginner watercolour that I could find at the library, and searched youtube for watercolour painting videos. So when things open up, check out your library system for books and as for youtube, I can recommend;

That is excellent news! You must all be elated.

When I wish that I had a partner to help with some of the heavy lifting, I remember that very often the load is not actually shared, and the partner may end up adding to the load, rather than sharing it.

One good thing about the whole covid situation is that your child is used to seeing people in masks. This is not an inconsequential thing; I remember when I got my tonsils out, I wasn’t afraid of the doctors and nurses, because I’d seen doctors and nurses on tv wearing masks, so I wasn’t frightened of them. I have a…

Congratulations! What a beautiful girl.