In the absence of any serious painting project at the moment I decided today that I would not only persist with my determination to do more drawing, but I would try my hand at a new medium. I have a set of coloured pencils but have rarely used them, so I thought that I would see what I could make of them.
It isn’t normally my cup of tea, but I thought that a flower would be a suitable subject for the medium. (Why? I’m really not sure.) So I went into the garden and cut a rhododendron blossom and put it into a small bottle that had originally contained chinese ink.
The result didn’t entirely please me. Attempting this exercise again in would select a different paper. The pastel paper I chose was much too coarse-grained. The greatest weakness of the piece is its composition, which has ended up rather unbalanced, for the simple reason that it didn’t occur to me to attend to that aspect of the task until I had committed myself, and it was too late to rectify it. Nevertheless, I do feel that I have learned from the experience, and I would like to try something in the medium again. Maybe I’ll choose a rather less complex form next time. This one really was ambitious.
This will not be tonight, however, as I have to get into the garden before it gets dark. I was sitting by the window in the living room earlier this afternoon when I noticed a squirrel digging in the pots into which I have planted courgettes. I’m not sure whether it was digging something up or burying something for future reference. Either way, it can get off my vegetables! I’m going out to put some netting on them. In horticulture as in art you do have to be prepared to learn from experience. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.