What to Do With 45 Minutes Outdoors....

I know I'll never see my boys up on the housetop learning how to roof, or their legs sticking out from under the sink learning how to do plumbing. But this is a sight that thrills my soul: God designed my husband to be an artist.

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And he's passing it on.

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I think they are born with a gene that inclines them toward art.

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And if they are boys, they automatically come with a gene that draws them to tractors. It's magnetic. An irresistible force. They can't help it. If we could harness this force, we could power New York City for 3 days.

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This is the finished outdoor sketch. Or "plein air sketch" if you want to sound erudite. (Just to show you how erudite I am, I had to use spell-check for that word). Artists do these sketches to study color, composition, and light and shadow. This one only took 45 minutes. A true easel painting would have taken anywhere from 2 hours to a week.

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This was her first try at working on a plein air sketch.
She thought it was pretty cool that a beetle got caught in her palette of paint.
She thought her sketch was pretty cool too.