Strawberries and First Flight Lesson

“There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”
– Booker T. Washington

 
Strawberries
4″ x 4″ Watercolor

This was fun to do.  I painted the little seeds with yellow acrylic, before I painted the watercolor.  I just am not any good with masking fluid.  It’s too gummy.   I used a wax resist one time and didn’t do much better with it.  I like the control I have with acrylic and an itty bitty brush. 


What an experience I had last night! I definitely need to journal about this experience. If I could draw my first lesson, I’d draw a giant, complicated instrument panel and a 2″ female student pilot. I haven’t been in a plane since my intro flight on Dec. 9 and it was amazing how much stuff they pack in to that Cessna 172 that I am supposed to remember.   I aced my FAA written test, but I felt like my brain had gone blank when I looked at all of those dials, gauges, knobs and switches.

But beyond the sense of being overwhelmed by the cockpit instruments, the experience was so cool! My brain retained things about flight that made maneuvers and their corresponding reactions feel right, if that makes sense. I wasn’t even scared when my CFI stalled the plane, because I understood how to get out of it. Steep turns are a little spooky and I taxi like a drunk driver, but I’ll get the hang of those things. 


When I got back to my truck and started to leave the airport, I heard myself say, “I just flew an airplane.”  But nobody was there to hear me, so when I got to the WalMart checkout person, 30 minutes later and she said, “How are you?” I heard it again.  “I just flew an airplane.”

I just had to tell somebody!
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About Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington, the influential American educator, was the first African-American to be invited to the White House; he also had tea with Queen Victoria. He was born in slavery in Virginia in 1856. After emancipation, he worked in the salt mines. When he learned of a school that would accept former slaves, he walked much of the 400 miles to get there. He became an outspoken advocate of education and hard work for African-Americans and founded Tuskegee University. He died in 1915.