Thank you Ania, for sharing this beautiful tutorial and helping me step out of my comfort zone and embrace the feeling of being a beginner again. It's so important not to lose that as a teacher!

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I rarely paint with my 9-year-old daughter because her perfectionism often clashes with my approach. But I thought it would be a nice mother-daughter activity, and when I asked her, she of course said yes. I picked out this tutorial because I liked the look and I have a lot of gouache paints that I don't use.

We immediately started with the project, and although I had watched all the lessons some weeks ago, I completely misjudged our abilities. So my daughter ended up doing something different as her attempt to do the background didn't work. We didn't dilute the gouache enough, so they were quite sticky. But she made a wonderful abstract out of it:

I also struggled right from the start. The colors didn’t blend the way I wanted, the first layer was too intense, and the cheap watercolor paper I had at home buckled like crazy. I felt frustrated, a feeling I’m not used to when I paint abstractly. For a moment, I wanted to give up.

But I didn't do it. Why? Probably because I was sharing this rare moment with my daughter, and I’d already made time for it.

So I kept going, even though the painting didn't yet look the way I had imagined. I adjusted my shapes, added layers and finally painted the birds because my daughter encouraged me to. I even added the soft pastel clouds at the end.

It didn't look like I had expected, it wasn't perfect, but it was mine and I ended up being happy it. Sticking with the project through discomfort gave me the unexpected satisfaction of having achieved something.

This experience reminded me of something I think we all need to hear: Growth doesn't always feel good. But once you've pushed through, it does!