Life this week has been unusually busy. Normally, I have a good amount of time with which I can do whatever I want, follow my fancy wherever it leads, but not this week. And the first thing I sacrificed in the face of this busyness was developing my drawing. I hardly sketched at all, simply didn’t make the time.
I did spend time this week watching tutorial videos created by the fabulous watercolor artist Stephanie Law. Her style really appeals to me and I’ve already learned so much from joining her Patreon account (I pay $2 a month to access videos she creates sharing her process). But I didn’t actually start to make my own art until last night and only because I remembered I had to create a post today.
The bitter truth is this: If I didn’t have this site keeping me on task I’d likely make hardly any time at all for creative pursuits, even when not super busy. Knowing that Claire would sass me if I was late or didn’t post helps compel me to create. I’m hoping this is just a necessary part of developing the creative habit, and that someday it’ll simply be my own strong desire to create that compels me. But for now this blog is doing its job: making creation compulsive. It’s not a choice, it’s not an option. It’s something I committed to, so I make the time, I make the space.
Here’s what I made:
I might have overworked this poor paper, using super heavy washes and even a squirt bottle + pouring paint technique. 300 pd paper might be needed for such excessive amounts of water. I’m learning that in watercolor you always start light and build up the darker areas with layer after layer, which was counterintuitive to me at the beginning. I used salt and baking powder, because I can’t stop myself and don’t want to.
Compulsive Creation 