This past week or so I’ve been attempting to build the word count on my novel, and I have done reasonably well – a small pat on the back for that. However, I decided I’d take a short break and do another sketch. When I took the photograph a while back, I thought ‘that’s nice’, and with that mediocre response I chose to work up a sketch from the photo. Probably not a good premise to begin with. Or, was it the new phone, with the new camera which is brighter in colour than my last one?

Anyway, I kept going with this sketch, and kept adding this and that, then trying to remove this and that. I guess I should have given up at this stage.

The this and that were the various mediums I tried. I am not a watercolourist but sometimes I can play around and have something turn out okay, but this wasn’t one of those times. I used Aquarelle pencils too, and remembered how bright they were once I put water through the pigment. I used water-soluble ink pen, too and the ink spread too far! So I kept adding and taking away until I came up with the next version of messing stuff up.

I added more pencil across the sky and hill, not adding anything in my opinion except to make the sketch muckier. But I decided to show the sketch regardless, as it just goes to prove work doesn’t always turn out as well as it might.

I am not going to beat myself up about this one, but really, I have been making the same ‘mistakes’ so long, you’d expect that I’d learn when to stop, wouldn’t you? I could have just got out a new piece of paper and done something different. Left the watercolour bit for another time.

Better luck with your work. All the best, Vivienne.