Playing art with Norah

It's no secret that I am constantly inspired by Sharon's creations, but what she came up with yesterday surprised even me. She invited me to a Saturday long distance art party! Her idea was that we should draw and paint with our non-dominant hand and send the progress pictures over the day to one another. I write with my right hand, but draw and paint only with my left, so sketching with my right hand felt weird. If sketching with my right hand felt unusual, holding a paint brush was even worse. I felt like I was trying to stab the paper... After seeing napkin that Norah used I decided to use a different part of the same napkin. Just to show how we can use the same thing and get completely different results. Laying the base color and stamping a little over it wasn't too difficult.
Actual painting was a challenge. For me everything was opposite. I mostly use an angle brush when I paint, so holding it in my right hand made everything feel like it's upside down. The angles, the sides that I paint first... Sharon kept sending me her progress pictures and reminding me "no expectations". That helped.
This is the moment when I decided I didn't like anything about my painting, so I grabbed some colored papers from my stash. I changed completely the background and added the little bird.
Sooner or later I had to attack the eyes... I took my tiny brush and started messing up the eyes... The only way I could do it was to take the paper off of the watercolor block and turn it around and around, allowing my left (dominant) hand to guide the paper for my right (scared) hand that was holding the brush. Is that cheating? I hope not.
I didn't do much shading on the face. I just couldn't. I need to have good control of my brush to blend it exactly as I want it and it just wasn't possible with my right hand. Maybe I'll be braver next time. I'm actually amazed that I was able to create anything with the opposite hand. Here is the final photo. I used some watersoluble crayons, added the words (At first we hope too much. Later on, not enough) and called it finished.This was so much fun! I am ever so thankful to my bbff for waking me up from my art sleep. I hope she inspired you too to try something unusual... Check out the masterpiece she created and look for the new Artful Blogging magazine for 6 lovely pages of her art.