Wednesday, December 15, 2010

What I learned from painting

There was a temporary hiatus in my sporadic blogging career (if you can call it that). I spent  the past few months indulging myself on watercolor painting instead of publishing articles. Something about painting -- mixing shades and hues, and soft music that is very soothing to the soul no matter how turbulent things around are.

Now before you get any ideas that I can paint a Monet, let me tell you that I didn't have any background on art at all except back in kindergarten. But one day out of a whim, I just bought a  watercolor tube set, brushes and paper to practice. The output wasn't bad. I was able to paint decent pictures of nature, most of them copied from somebody else's drawings. However because I didn't study the technique and the rules on how to correctly compose a painting, my artworks were not consistent, that to a point it became frustrating.

And then one day, I decided to go to Upper Arlington Library and searched for watercolor books.  It was fascinating to realize how learning the basic techniques and having the right tools can create the most interesting pictures. Lesson learned: if you are not a natural genius at something, you have to read  books and learn.

This is true to studying the English language. Although some are more gifted in learning languages, some people people need to spend more time to absorb and gain fluency. Grammar is the framework of sentence structure. Sentences will be lame, clumsy and even incomprehensible if it's not correctly applied. Grammar, as most of my students complained, is boring. My answer is, "Yes, it (used) to be boring." But that was before online ESL quizzes and games were invented!

Check out these websites and have fun while brushing up your English skills:

http://www.brainpopesl.com/ 
http://www.manythings.org/voa/001225sp2.htm
http://www.ego4u.com/en/chill-out/games/shopping-quiz
http://www.funbrain.com/grammar/index.html
http://www.manythings.org/cg/

1 comment:

  1. That was nice reading ur article, thanks for sharing this article.
    I found some information that i needed.
    I hope u keep writing article like this :)
    Regards sosok kartu jack

    ReplyDelete

About Me

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I'm a reader,a mother, a spirited watercolor painter, a coffee lover and a passionate learner of life, love and Web 2.0. For questions regarding ESL lessons, you can send an email to: english.notes311@gmail.com.