Painting By Design

When we were in Mwanza (Tanzania) we had the joy of having some good friends like Bert and his family living right next door. We played badminton on the lawn and the kids played and we talked about everything under the sun.

We had a view over Lake Victoria, and supplies from our trips when we went to see the grannies in South Africa. So life wasn't always without it's challenges, and there were no big malls, and there were many power outages, and months without running water, but we had the resources to fetch water every day, so life was still OK.

One of my pass-times with Eryn - drawing - She was only about 4 or 5, so I used to draw grids and swirls and we'd color them in with markers. By coloring blocks different colors it gave us the ability to create the effect of shading and different light across a hill, tree or water - otherwise markers tended to give you one solid color, which was a little boring. And we started doing each block a different color but soon realized you could maybe colors a few blocks the same color too, and say for the hill, not just use different shades of green, but add bits of brown or purple too. Then one day, quite by accident, we discovered that a little spill of water could go a long way to merging the colors into something new, and break up the solid grids. here's a early example of what we used to do. So much fun.

I have to say, while I have never really seen a house shaped like this one, we all seem to start off drawing them like that, with a few exceptions like Mr Picasso etc, but as you see, I am no exception :)