I have been painting (hence my being slightly tardy on this submission).  I decided to repaint my bathroom, which I suspect will lead to my painting my bedroom, and then the hall and then all the baseboards, and then maybe the puppies (just kidding). I painted my bathroom a really beautiful, soothing rose. Reminds me of a Wedgewood rose.  The paint company calls it Damask Dunes, which is kind of a cool name.  Are there people locked away in some office in the paint companies making up crazy paint names?  The paint color in my living room is Water Hyacinth, which makes me think of that overbearing woman, on “Keeping Up Appearances” – Hyacinth Bucket.

I finished painting the bathroom, and although the new color – Damask Dunes, is a very nice color, my bathroom still seemed a bit bland.  And because of that, I developed this overwhelming desire to paint a mural on it.  Now I must tell you, I am not an artist.  But I was kind of like Richard Dreyfuss in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, with his obsession about the mountain in the middle of nowhere.  I had to put something on the wall.

Having lived in Japan for several years, one of the most beautiful memories I have, is of the cherry blossoms, everywhere.  And the way the trees and the blossoms are depicted in the traditional artwork is incredible.  So, having absolutely no skill at all to tackle something like this, I decided that is what I was going to do. Skill, schmill. That’s what I say.

Off to YouTube I went.  And I watched time-lapsed videos of these amazing artists creating beautiful images of the blossoming cherry tree on walls, in no time flat. Over and over again, I watched these videos until I convinced myself – I could do that!

I began with the trunk, just like in the videos.  I began to panic though as I progressed, because it honestly looked like someone had gone nuts and just spread crap all over my bathroom wall.  But I soldiered on. Painting, painting, painting. And then to the blossoms.  This was a little dicier, because I was working on textured walls.  And when I had completed the mural, I painted the symbol at the bottom of the wall – it’s supposed to depict the word “patience” – which I thought was incredibly apropos for the bathroom. I hope it really does say “patience” and not something naughty.

Here is the finished product.  I still need to work on the little tiny buds and blossoms, but I thought I should give it a rest, study it, before I did anymore and made a mess of it.

Photo credit: fanpop.com