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My cousin responded to my post on Face book regarding my health issue in the blog below. He wrote, "Maybe you should try finger painting."
I replied, "I tried that many years ago. Nobody was buying painted fingers."

This past year I had a major health issue. My wife's sister told her about a phone call with her brother who had called to inquire how I was doing. The phone call went like this.

"Well, how is Monte doing?" my brother-in-law asked.

"Fine," my sister-in-law responded. "The doctor has advised him to take it easy."

He replied quickly, "How much easier can a retired artist take it?!"

Her reply was, "I think he is going paint in black and white instead of color."

(Who needs comedians when you have relatives like these two jokers.)

Oh, getting old is so exciting. I had a quote I wanted to post here, but had no idea where I had put it. I headed for "Google" to do a search. For some reason just then I turned to look at the light over my painting desk, a foggy memory of having stuck it there long ago. It was still there, faded, curled up, but still legible...kind of like some of my old friends anymore.

Anyway, a good quote I have found to be so true.

"Watercolor is like golf...the fewer strokes, the better." (Skip Lawrence and Christopher Schink, The Palette Magazine)

My cousin Cathy is a beginning watercolorist. Recently she unknowingly gave me some fodder I can use while I'm teaching one of my future watercolor workshops. She decided to quit on the painting she had been working on and told me why. I've decided I can use her assessment of "quitting time" when one of my students asks the question as in the following example.

The befuddled student asked, "Mr. Toon, how do you know when a painting is finished?"

The wise teacher knowingly responded, "When you decide it's time to quit before you mess something up you can't fix."