I often say to myself, “Angela, what on earth were you thinking?” This is one of those times.

I started with hand lettering the words. Ok-ish Good enough to mess around with. And mess around them I did – with an “aura” and pattern, then more patterns and repeated motifs … until I’d mostly filled a square sketchbook page.

The drawing was OK. I liked some bits, others I didn’t.

Then, I thought, “What would it look like with colour? Let’s try Inktense and water!”

How often have I mused here about how I struggle with colour? All was going OK-ish with just pinks and greens … and then I added blues and browns…

The geometric pattern at the bottom were colours that didn’t fit well. So, I added watercolours to glaze the colours. Big mistake. I lost any sense of shadow and highlight …

So, I used a white graphite/chalk pencil to try to add the highlights back in …

YEUCH!

So, I put it to one side while I did some other stuff and had lunch.

Then, it caught my eye and with fresh eyes I thought that maybe it’s not as bad as I thought it was .. maybe.

I constantly do this – try to add colour with traditional media and fail. Monochrome seems to work best for me. Monochrome where I can play with shadow and light. Monochrome colours that are added digitally seems to work the best of all.

No matter how often I tell myself this, put notes up to remind me of this, I still insist on trying to use traditional coloured media.

I just think that I hope one day that something will just ‘click’ with me. Today wasn’t that day it seems!

So, back to either white or simple coloured backgrounds, and adding monochrome colours for the sense of dimensionality I like. And I have no hopes that I’ll remember this in a day, a week, or a month or two and I’ll end up asking myself the exact same question; “Angela, what were you thinking?”

The end result may be something I’m unhappy with, but adding colour was enjoyable. I just seem unable to stick to just one or two colours, with variations in their intensity and tone. Then, I descend, bit by bit, into insecurity and self-doubt and incredulity that I did it again!

Ho hum! Not to worry, it’s only pen, paper and some other media. It’s yet another experience to help me, hopefully, learn more and be more comfortable with my artistic style. If we did everything perfectly every time we’d never learn and grow.

So, back to a blank piece of paper with pens I go, and may make some art to remind me, “Angela, monochrome is best!”