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pavethra

Experimenting with Watercolours, Pens & Post-It Notes

In early October, I needed a reset weekend, and this type of weekend looks different for everyone. Some of us would want to sleep in, clean our homes, catch up on TV series and so on. For me, that particular weekend, I wanted to stay in and draw while wearing my thick joggers, friends oodie, and patterned socks. With this in mind, I gathered a group of art materials, including watercolours, post-it notes, tape, paintbrushes, coloured pencils and my A3 sketchbook. 


I slowly walked downstairs, knowing that if I slanted my hands slightly the materials resting on my sketchbook would topple, creating a thundering sound as each object collided with the wooden steps until their momentum became null - but thankfully, I did not have to deal with this. 


I don't have an art studio yet, so I opted to use the large table in the dining room to spread newspapers across it and lay out my art materials - I couldn't help but feel that I was preparing for some kind of art workshop. 


With my AirPods tucked into my ears, I walked (and awkwardly danced) to the rhythm of Bloody Samaritan by Ayra Starr over to the kitchen to fill a hand-painted mug (which has now become my designated water jug for my paintbrushes) with tap water. 


I opened my sketchbook to a new page and started tearing strips of tape to create small frames on the page. Using a wide paintbrush and a set of limited watercoloured paints, I coloured in each square. I wasn't sure if it was my comfy clothes, the music pouring through my ears or the mental note that I made to myself about this being all experimental, but I found myself engaging with the feeling of painting rather than focusing on how it appeared on the page in front of me. After each box had been covered with a layer of paint, I felt impatient and immediately started peeling the tape on the page. The reveal of crisp borders of each shape made me feel like a child who was seeing something for the first time. 


I grabbed a graphite pencil from my pencil case and started drawing thin lines in any direction that felt right (to me). I stared at the delicate lines and recognised that these lines were missing some variation between them and that this was the 'thing' that was making the artwork in front of me look dull, so I began to thicken specific lines.


I found myself asking questions about what the page could look like if I used pens to create the thin lines or added words instead. 


"Grow outwards, extensively, and ridiculously", you repeat in your heart as your eyes gaze at the new wall. 


I scribbled these words from a poem (I wrote over a year ago) onto the page. The pages had now become full of colours, lines and words. I knew I had overdone it, but without seeing the outcome in front of me, I couldn't be sure how the artwork would make me feel. I used neon green post-it notes to jot down what I liked and didn't like about the combination of colours, words and lines. This process did not discourage me from further experimenting that morning. I exchanged the thin lines for broader ones and incorporated sunflower yellow watercoloured paints and rhubarb-coloured curved lines over a new spread of pages.


I flicked through the latest additions to my sketchbook and reflected on how fun this experimental morning had been. This may have been a slightly long version of me sharing my experimental process, but I hope this post has helped you understand that my creating days are not all filled with detailed drawings; sometimes, they are messy and mismatched - but isn't this what experimenting is about?

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