After my friends’ and my first gallery show at Art in Bloom Gallery, Amy Grant, the gallery owner, invited me to submit a piece or two to the their “New Year, New Art” exhibit to be shown between February and March of 2019. Honored by the offer, I dedicated myself to my Sculpture II and Printmaking II classes that semester, determined to create something in one of those classes worthy of submitting to the gallery show. I was so involved in this that I only realized February 2 none of my projects would be finished in time for the February 5 submission deadline. So I hurriedly began a brand new piece, an 11”x17” watercolor of a beautiful endangered frog species I had recently learned about called the Bornean Rainbow Toad.

I hoped if I worked non-stop that weekend I could finish up my painting on Monday and Tuesday in time for the deadline. Of course, things always take longer than I expect! While it should have been obvious to me from the start, picking an intricately textured and colored frog to paint takes time to do well. Additionally, painting a dark nighttime scene with watercolors requires lots of layers. To save time with the background, I painted a base coat wash of India ink, but it still took time to blend everything evenly in the leaves, and by Tuesday, I had only completed the first layers of the background.

Fortunately, Amy was kind enough to let me finish my painting the next weekend, and I just managed to finish painting it, scan it and frame it that Sunday. It had been an absolutely hectic week juggling my projects from my art classes, studying for tests, and preparing for this show, but actually finishing my Bornean Rainbow Toad felt incredibly rewarding. And considering the species’ fascinating, hopeful story and innate beauty, I am happy that even with my limited time I was able to paint a Bornean Rainbow Toad I could be proud of.