The eighth week of the Autumn Plein Air Drawing challenge was not a good week. At least not for plein air drawing.
No. That’s not strictly true. I did make a couple of attempts to get a drawing done. It’s just that none of them worked as I’d hoped.
To start with, I didn’t have a lot of time. A number of other things rose up and took charge of my time. Some were expected. Some—like furnace troubles—were not.
I snatched a little time between a mid-week Bible study and choir practice on Wednesday evening to do a quick watercolor study of the evening sky. The colors were so lovely, I just couldn’t resist. My intention was to draw clouds and a few trees with Prismacolor after the watercolor dried, but by the time the paper was ready to draw on, the light was gone and it was time for choir practice, so the drawing went no further.
My next opportunity came Friday evening. I was having back problems by then and couldn’t sit outside in the cool air for very long, so I drew a portion of sky visible through the office window. Again, I tried the evening sky, but this time I used water soluble colored pencils.
That did not work at all, sad to say, though I think part of the problem was the fact that I’m using a box of student grade water soluble colored pencils acquired on the cheap some time ago.
Be that as it may be, I did my best and ended up with something that looked a whole lot like a mess. The blue was very lovely, but much too dark. I also got the paper too wet and by the time it dried, the light was gone. Again.
Time Spent Drawing
All told, I’m guessing I spent about an hour drawing as part of the challenge.
What I Learned
Cheap art supplies are just not worth it. A lesson learned years ago with oil paints. I still remember the day I put the first mark on canvas with professional grade oil paint. It was astounding!
Why I have to relearn the lesson with other materials is beyond me. I guess it’s that frugal—dare I say cheap—streak running up the middle of my back!
Sometimes the best you can do isn’t very good. Another lesson with a shallow learning curve. I like to make every drawing and painting good. The best! But there are times when the best I can do isn’t very good. Or at least not very pleasing. Such was the case with plein air drawing this week.
Do what you can. There are times in life when we simply cannot meet our goals. That was my experience with week 8 of the plein air challenge. The time and will didn’t coincide in a fashion that allowed me to spend the necessary amount of time outside drawing or painting. That’s just life. I’ll be thankful for the drawing I did on the challenge, for the other artwork I did, and for everything else that did go right and I’ll look forward to next week.
Tools Used
Strathmore Bristol Vellum 100 lb white paper
Faber-Castell Art Grip Aquarelle Water Color Pencils, 12 pencil set. I used pretty much every color except black!
