I get so little completely free time that when I do get it, I tend to squander it wondering what to do. I'll decide to take a nap, then on the edge of dozing off decide that I'd rather be thumbing through an O magazine or something. I'll scan the table of contents then realize I should be at the gym instead. I'll open my drawers to find my gym clothes and then realize that my time might be best spent getting rid of clothes I never wear. I'll start to collect clothes I never wear and then get filled with fatigue and get mad at myself for not having nodded off in the first place. Next thing I know my kids are home again and I have nothing to show for my down time. No restful mom, no finished magazine, no morale-boosting work-out, no weeded out clothes. I hate that. I remember who I was in my pre-kid life, and I remember that the Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolour (they're British) Field Set was an important part of my solitude. I've recommended it to art students over the years, and even though I haven't touched mine in some time, I do have romantic ideas of returning to being that kind of person. At some point. In my former life I made many little paintings using my set. It travelled with me to Portugal, Chile, Madagascar, Israel, and the little cakes of color aren't close to running out. It's got a cute little collapsible (but very solid) brush, and I used to keep a few Q-tips in the set for instant-erasing. I'd also use a water bottle cap full of water to keep the set going for a long time (I've been known to use beer too if that's all that's available). But from the look of it, they've added a few new features. It comes with a little sea sponge, and a canteen for keeping water. There's also a little tray table that you snap in that doubles the amount of paint you can have going at any given time. It's really a great little set. Technically, if a cake of color runs out you can just purchase one other little chunk. I suppose if I had a little water color painting for every tiny chunk of down time I've happened across in the last nine and a half years I could fill a gallery with my artwork. And I might have ordered a few more cakes of color by now. One testament to how much I love my Cotman Watercolour Field Set is that I can locate my set at a moment's notice. And that's saying a lot in this house with the closets and the drawers and the shelves that have never really been properly organized--given how unfocused I've been known to be during those moments when I should be taking care of them. RL
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