Watercolor class - new session

I enrolled in an on-line watercolor class hosted by the county I live in. The lessons are real-time WebEx. The students email photos of their homework for critique. The first lesson was about painting glazes (diluted color) and overlapping them to achieve a color. These were fun to do. One is totally abstract. The other has an object (a bottle) but with an abstract treatment. It will be interesting to find out if I understood the point of the exercise.

TerraGenesis

To have something to distract me from doom-scrolling, I downloaded the game TerraGenesis. It is a terraforming simulator. This appealed to me because I am interested in space exploration and the possibility of humans living elsewhere in the galaxy. I'm also a fan of The Expanse and enjoyed Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars books.

It doesn't take a lot of time or concentration. I'm still learning the strategy. Since it is free to download, I can choose to watch ads to get currency or I can purchase them. I'll probably buy something later when I'm sure the game is something I will enjoy.

ASL Manual Alphabet Practice app

I have been using hearing aids for a little over 20 years. My hearing gradually got worse. With tinnitus as well, it is harder for me to understand speech. I currently rely on captioning and lip-reading.

I have been trying to learn ASL for several years off and on. I took some classes, but it never stuck because I didn't use it daily. One of my goals for this year is to learn ASL. I'll start with the Bill Vickers videos, and eventually I'll be brave enough to try it in real life.

Another anti-doom-scrolling app I found was one to practice the manual alphabet (fingerspelling). I can form all the letter in alphabetical order, but have trouble "reading" them. The app lets you set the speed and number of letters. It shows static hand shapes, then you type in the letters.

This is a nice thing to do when I want to take a break. I do 5 or so words in a session. I hope I continue until I'm ready to "read" videos of fingerspelling.