Past the sketch

I've got a bunch of uncolored drawings piling up at the minute. I tend to work in one specific medium at a time. My brain doesn't really multi task artisically. Occassionally I'll start a picture and just paint it right through. But usually I'll just work on drawings and keep starting new drawings, ignoring the painting side of things as long as I can. Not that this is a concious effort to organise my studio time or anything. It's purely because drawing, the ideas part, the inception of an image, comes a lot easier to me than the finishing. Or that middle period at least; setting down the principle colours of a picture. The details, I'm fine with, and even manipulating the paint on a page I enjoy, but it's just that point where you have to make a choice. You've got this nice sketch that you're happy with and then you have to figure out where its going to go, in the hope that whatever rendering you do adds to the image instead of ruining it. Especially so with watercolours. Generally you have one go. I'd usually have a practice area before applying paint, but i find watercolours will always behave differently every time you use them. Which is also why i like them. You end up with colours and textures you hadn't even planned.

Anyway, I've about a dozen drawings in varying levels of finishment piling up on the desk (not including the 10 or 20 canvas and wood paintings stacking up that I'm completely ignoring). Here's a few watercolours in progress.