Earlier this week, I realised that a few days had slipped by without me splashing some paint around, so I slipped out to my studio (ie. the workbench in our utility room) to do something – anything – to keep my hand in. On the palette, I had a couple of patches of left over paint and, short of inspiration, I use the pinkish purple one to sketch the jar I had my water in. I was quite pleased with it, especially after dotting in some paint from the leftover blue and adding a shadow and so decided to try adding another of the jars from the bench.

I don’t know how it looks to you but, to me, it is obvious that the left-hand jar came first. In comparison, the right-hand one had less energy and is a pale echo of its neighbour (although it doesn’t hurt to have some parts of an image draw the eye more than others). I finished it off by adding the dark patch at the top – first painted with water from the jar and then darkened from my well of black (the section of my palette where I drop leftover paint if I want to clear a space – it does have some pigment black in there but has been enriched numerous times).

I was quite exhilarated even in the painting of it and still pleased once it had dried. In fact, I’ve just finished framing and hanging it on the wall, the first of my watercolours I’ve done that for since getting back into this art in the summer.

It does raise an interesting question of how long it took. Raw execution was a matter of minutes. It took longer to scan, adjust and publish the image, let alone writing it up for this blog post. However, it is the result of my previous artistic experience; to some extent the whole of it and certainly the development of eye, hand and a feeling for the materials has been growing since the summer. Even the raw materials – the unnamed patches of purple and blue – were the result of previous painting sessions. Therefore, for the sake of the question (and, to be honest, because I need to catch up) this one is going in my 52photos collection.