Absurdity
Local Woman Shocked to Discover Watercolor Painting Requires Practice
By Bruno Von Falken, . BSN Network. Satire.
A Naperville woman is recovering this week after learning, at the age of 34, that a skill she had never attempted before required some amount of time and repetition before she became competent at it.
Caitlin Morse, a project coordinator and self-described 'creative person,' purchased a full Winsor and Newton starter kit, two instructional books, and a $40 cold-press paper block last Tuesday after watching approximately eleven minutes of watercolor content on Instagram. By Thursday evening, she had produced three paintings that her husband described, under legal advisement, as 'abstract.'
'I just thought it would come more naturally,' Morse told reporters, gesturing at a piece of paper that appeared to show a sunset over a harbor, or possibly a spilled energy drink. 'The woman in the video made it look so easy. She just sort of touched the paper and flowers happened.'
The woman in the video has been painting for fourteen years.
Morse says the worst moment came on the second night, when she attempted a simple lemon and the resulting image 'looked like the lemon had already given up.' She sat with it for a long time. She did not try again that evening.
'We're not talking about a minor setback,' said her friend Dana Kowalski, who drove over on Friday to provide emotional support and accidentally said the painting 'had a lot of energy in it,' which Morse took as confirmation that it was bad. 'She'd already told three people she was going to have an Etsy shop by spring. There's a lot to process.'
Representatives from the broader hobby industry acknowledged the pattern without a hint of embarrassment.
'What we're seeing is a temporary misalignment between inspiration-phase confidence and skill-acquisition-phase reality,' said a spokesperson for a national craft retail chain, reading from a statement that had clearly been prepared for exactly this situation. 'We encourage all new enthusiasts to embrace the learning journey as part of the creative experience.' The spokesperson did not take questions.
Neurologists and people who have ever tried anything note that the human brain requires repetition to build new motor pathways, that this has been documented since roughly the beginning of documented things, and that this information is freely available on the same platform where Morse watched the Reels.
Morse says she has watched those Reels an additional seven times since Thursday. Each time, she reports, the instructor makes it look easier.
'I think I might just need better paper,' Morse said.
The paper she is currently using retails for forty dollars a block.
As of Sunday, Morse had attempted a fourth painting, a small study of a teacup, which she photographed from an angle that mostly hid the handle. She posted it to her Instagram stories with the caption 'work in progress' and received fourteen heart reactions, three of which were from people who thought it was a photograph of an actual teacup.
She has since purchased a second set of brushes.
The lemon painting is still on the kitchen table. Nobody has moved it.
The story we are making fun of: https://reductress.com/post/devastating-woman-has-to-practice-new-hobby-before-getting-good-at-it/