The River in Bloom and Gouache

The past few days everywhere I look I see all shades of pink. The river next to my house is especially beautiful. I am not sure if all of these flowers are sakura or not, but to me it doesn't really matter what these trees are, I only care that it's really beautiful outside.

For a long time I had this idea for a scene for the story that I am writing, and today I thought it out on the way home and had to put it down on paper. Not in words though, but as a sketch. I rarely venture to touch colors, even though I own a beautiful set of colored pencils (thank you Steph!) and gouache (I got it so I can work with clay). It's just.. well, it's just difficult to work with colors, and I can never get it the way I want, and I give up really easily. This time though I was pretty determined to try out the colors. Back in art school I hated watercolors because they are so tricky, and because they are translucent, so blending is very difficult, and mistakes are hard to fix. I loved gouache though, and today I enjoyed myself so much, experimenting. Mixing colors for gouache is a lot like mixing colors for clay, and fixing mistakes is easier too. Once again I thought that art is at least 80% about conscientiousness (a.k.a. working until your brain explodes). Of course you have to be able to visualize what you want to draw, but practice, not talent is what helps you make your hands obey and create what you see in your mind. I think same goes for music, creative writing, mathematics, and many other areas that some people are reigned by gifted people. Gifted people, I think, are people who can find enough inspiration to sit for hours and putting small dots on paper, or grating clay, or writing and scrapping drafts, etc.

Anyways, I am nowhere near being finished, this is going to take a long time, but I am going to keep drawing/painting. I am also going to stop worrying about making good copies, and instead make as many sketches as I can. It's not like I am making a portfolio here, I need sketches for my story-board, so that I have more inspiration and visualization to write.

And speaking of writing, I am going to try and get some writing down tonight.