Watercolour

Like many artistically inclined children, I was given a set of Daler Rowney watercolours for my birthday one year. My first paints! What delights would I unleash with these cubes of colour? Well, practically none, as it turned out. Unschooled in the art of watercolour and evidently lacking any instinct for the medium, I used them, as undiluted as possible, to colour in my drawings of horses and Dogtanian characters. It was a bit fiddly with the blunt brush provided and, frankly, felt tip worked better.

I went on to art school where, in the late 1990s, everyone would rather have dropped dead than be seen prodding around a tin of watercolours. The closest we got was watching the hapless amateurs in the surprisingly addictive Watercolour Challenge. Only recently have I embraced the medium and now I wonder why it took me so long. These rich little cakes of pigment are so fun and versatile, easy to carry around and fast to work with.