Swimming in colour

On the power of tangents

The worst about leaving home for long periods — let’s say longer than a week — is the fact that I cannot take clay with me. Pottery isn’t really a portable occupation. However, as I recently found out, this doesn’t mean I am left without any means of creating a complete mess wherever I go.

this has been the state of the dining table since we arrived… luckily, we mostly eat outside, on the patio

Shortly before I came to Portugal, I had started exploring watercolour. All the mugs and espresso beakers I had finished were drying on the shelves and there was no time to start any new ones, so, after tidying up the studio, I looked for a watercolour course on Domestika¹. This, you might remember, is not the first time I go looking for a new thing just before travelling… Anyway… I also dug around on YouTube, found some videos that spoke to me and started watching them.

This inevitably led to a trip to town for supplies. I had brushes but no paper and no paints… And so it is that, while in art supplies’ heaven, it came to me: I can take this with me! All I need is a small set of watercolours and some A5 sheets or sketchbook (or both!) and I am sorted!

And the rest, as they say, is herstory.

Playing with watercolours has been a breath of fresh air, to put it mildly. What started as a way to fill the time I couldn’t make anything with clay has become an amazing journey into colour, exploration, and play.

Watching Jenna Rainey’s YouTube channel, I learnt about the basic watercolour techniques and also about colour theory. Colour theory in particular lit a lot of light bulbs in my brain… I use a lot of colour in my pottery but it’s all very instinctive and, predictably, quite often I get frustrated and feel stuck, not really understanding why a piece is not working. Well, now I know… It’s fascinating how one can know about primary and secondary colours and about contrasting and complementary colours, and yet not really make the right connections when needed. Or maybe it’s just me…

In any case, I am having a lot of new ideas, some fully formed, some mere glimpses, a few great, many complete nonsense… It may look like I am only having fun and tra-la-la but I am in fact hard at work. Always.

Another side effect of this tangent into watercolour has been the discovery of sketchbooks. Again, you may think I am being weird, but hear me out. Yes, I own a lot of notebooks and my studio is littered with half filled notepads, some with “drawings”, some with ideas. But the concept that a sketchbook can be filled with doodles, paintings and collages in order to tell a story that you didn’t know you were going to tell until it’s finished — that was news to me. Clearly, it’s not new to the world, since there is an entire library filled with such sketchbooks, but again… I am not the world.

The final project of the Domestika course I mentioned above is one such sketchbook and I am loving working on it. I haven’t finished it yet, and some parts are less interesting than others. I also realise that its purpose is mostly to be a place for exploring, trying things that may not work, colour combinations you would normally cringe at, and making mistakes, lots of mistakes… but still, I really want to share some pages with you, and so here they are:

random pages

In the course, you work on the sketchbook not from first page to last, but randomly, opening it each time on empty double pages that also have empty pages on either side. The exercises explore different themes using different techniques. This way, it may happen that the first pages are filled with exercises from the last lessons, for example.

Then, when you complete all the exercises, which are meant to introduce you to different techniques and also teach you about colour, you are left with “middle pages”, and that is when the real fun begins.

For these, Laura McKendry, who by the way, is an amazing artist, tells you to look at the pages immediately before and immediately after the empty double ones, and to start making connections and mixing up things. That is when you realise that your sketchbook will not be a random collection of seemingly unconnected exercises! Nope! It will be a beautiful non-linear record of your progress with a running thread and recurring themes; it will be a place where you will realise that turquoise blue looks amazing next to scarlet red; that a leaf can become a bird; that orange actually can work next to the right pink; that a cat can chase the moon; that you miss making vases, and that — who would have thought?! — geometric shapes can be fun.

Like I said above, I haven’t completed the course yet, which is to say I still have a few “middle pages” to fill, but my head is already exploding with ideas I want to explore in my next sketchbook (hello trip to art supplies store!), and patterns and colour combinations I want to take home and try with underglazes on clay.

Like I said, always hard at work.

As if this wasn’t enough, I also joined The Shitty Birds Art Club (brilliant name, by the way!) and signed up for the 5 Day Drawing Challenge. Both are projects by the amazingly talented

Jane Pike

of

Creating Wild with Jane Pike

.

I am “working” on the “challenge” for day 1, and this is what I have so far:

it turns out, I can actually produce drawings that aren't a total horror show as previously believed!

Jane has a way of talking and telling you everyone can draw that makes you want to believe her and make it so.

All the above have been first drawn with a pencil and involved lots of rubbing out. But, what I found out is that once I grab that fine-point pen to start going over the pencil lines (by the way, Jane just draws straight with the pen which scares the bejesus out of me), my hand feels more sure of itself and often makes different — better! — lines, ignoring the guide-lines altogether. It may not make it more life-like but, in my opinion, it actually makes the drawing look better. I found that a decisive line, which doesn’t mean a straight line, you understand, — even if it’s off and a little shaky — is more pleasing to the eye than an hesitant one. This too should not be news to me, because this is exactly the case with sgraffito. Again, I’m slow with the joining the dots thing.

Since I am on holidays, all of these new connections and ideas are happening along-side short excursions to the beach², and some deep emersion in colour and random patterns… Because another side-effect of this tangent into watercolour and drawing is that my way of looking has changed. I see patterns and colours everywhere, and pictures of these now compete on my phone with pictures of my daughter, which goes to show how serious the situation has become.

random stuff my brain can't help but notice now, and find fascinating...

Still, so you don’t think I’m a total nut-case, here is a picture of my daughter by the sea.³

dreaming of swimming in colour

And now comes the time when I stop to consider the word tangent, and how it might apply and not apply to what I am trying to tell you… here is when I go beyond the strict rules of geometry to tell you that sometimes a tangent does intersect with the line or plane it touches, so much so that it changes it forever.

I leave you with the wise words of my 11 year-old daughter, roughly translated from Portuguese by me: “Mamã, the ocean is lighter and darker not because some parts are shallow and other deep as you told me, but simply because it loves colour.” True fact. From the mouths of babes, as they say.

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As always, thank you so much for reading. Next week, you will meet a new potter (or find out more about them if you know them already!). Until then, take good care of yourselves, may your days be full of colour and, if you see a tangent approaching, be sure to follow it with all your heart.

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If you would like to see my work

I invite you to check my Etsy store where you will find what comes out of my kiln. I am also on Instagram, though more and more I wish I weren’t.

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1. I found this one which, if like me you are new to watercolour, I throughly recommend: Creative Watercolour Sketching for Beginners

2. Not-so-fun fact: I suffer from some freak allergy to the sun or the sun/salt/sand combo, I don’t know, but after the first day at the beach my body starts to erupt in these tiny but mightily itchy and unpleasant spots… it ain’t pretty, don’t worry, I won’t share any pictures.

3. If you are curious about the place where this picture was taken, you can read about it here and here.