Colour All The Things
Friday, October 04, 2013
Yesterday was one of those days. You know the kind? Stuff breaks. Things go wrong. It starts off badly. I decided to finish work earlier, refuse to accept that my day was ending the way it began. So, after my overlocker finally gave up the ghost and refused to work, I got out my watercolours and a few ink drawings I made a while ago - and painted.
Painting is a great way to unwind. It always seems to fix things. I'm going through a kind of journalling phase; lots of ink and watercolours, doodles, casual and free typography. I'll show you some day. I have a clear bias towards phthalo blue. I really really like this little set of watercolours.
My palette really needs a clean, but I can't bear to wash away those coloured hues. I just wet them and add more paint the next time I want to use it - I do have a very predictable colour preference, it seems.
I happened upon an old pencil drawing of mine while back at home, and redrew it in micron pen into a sketch pad. I was alarmed at seeing something similar to my ink drawing on Pinterest a few days ago, so I thought it was time to acknowledge my thirteen-year-old self and finally do something with those sketches from way-back-when.
I have an enormous collection of drawings I never do anything about (many of which are stored away in boxes in South Africa). They pile up, in sketch books and note books. They're black and white and grey - and sometimes, they make their way into my work, but mostly they just stay between two covers. I've decided to do something about them. It's a homage to a friend who lives a million miles away. She recently told me to draw all the things- and to stop thinking, and just do.
It's quite nice to work with old drawings and ideas. They capture a moment of your former self, stored away in charcoal or pencil lines. I rather like reworking them with some of new preferences, changing a few details here and there.
I added to the initial drawing and it grew from being a feather into a kind of leaf (inevitable, really). The micron pen uses pigment ink which (mostly) stays in place when you wet it, so it was always meant to be coloured in watercolours, like a giant, over-detailed colouring-in picture.
It turned out almost exactly as I had imagined it. I finished it off with white acrylic ink which I love. Now, if only I had done something about the background before I added all those lovely soft greens. Ah.
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