Quick Colours

K ’03. 15 min sketch done from photo on sketch paper.
I see the flaws, and I like it.

I recently came across a lovely art-blog by watercolour artist / teacher Jana Bouc with beautiful ink-and-watercolours, especially her wildflowers.

It reminded me of an art group I went to years ago. I wanted to improve my drawing skills, and spent hours (or so it seemed) labouring over pencil drawings. I know you need to practice, but it gets fairly tedious, so I used to finish up with a quick ink-and-watercolour study, just for fun.

The pencil drawings weren’t that bad. Yet somehow, I was always happier with the spontaneous watercolour sketches than with the drawings that cost me so much effort. I wonder why. Was it just that I prefer colours over line drawings? Or because in my mind one represented work, the other play? Or did the my impatience with one and joy in the other somehow seep into the drawings?

Not so bad, I guess.

You can see I was totally lost, trying to do the reflections here.