You know how everyone was baking bread in 2020?

I’ll admit, so was I. At the same time, I decided with all the time on my hands that I’d start drawing again.

If you have been following me on Instagram, you’ll have seen some of the drawings of birds and marine life I’ve done in coloured pencil. I love drawing animals, their colours all interlaced in the bunches of feather and fur, and they always seem to have this startled look to them in photographs.

When lockdown lifted but travel not yet begun, I also started to attend life drawing classes, drawing the bodies in all shapes and sizes, celebrating our natural form (and not the ‘form’ you see on social media).

Then, I thought I’d try painting the world in watercolour.

I came across a few watercolour paintings of landscapes, places that I recognised. Great cities like Paris, Rome, and Sydney, as well as beautiful views of the sea and the mountains. The colours soft and vibrant at the same time, and I knew then I wanted to learn how to paint like that.

There is something poetic about painting in watercolour. You almost have to think back-to-front. Thinking of the empty spaces first (the whites, the lights) and starting from the palest shade working your way to the darker. If you were painting the sky for example, you first know where the clouds will be and then paint the blue background first, leaving spaces for the white fluff, then layer it with shadows to give it dimension.

Nothing has an outline in watercolour, one colour simply transform into the next.

Another thing with watercolour is, you need to be patient. Layer upon layers of colours need time to dry. Sometimes it is ok to paint the colours on top of each other, let them merge into one another. Most of the time, you need to let them dry before applying lines and shades, otherwise, you just get a jumbo of colours all mixed together with no image.

Still learning, my paintings are still very childish. However, learning watercolour has given me a new perspective on my travel experiences.

I started looking at the world in watercolour, and it has given me a new appreciation of my surroundings. A tree is not just green. It’s layers of different shades of green, and sometimes with hints of mauve or amber around the edges.

Like people. We are all layers of different colours. A person who is active also have days when she is happy to sit and read for hours. A person with a smile on his face might be hiding shadows in the corners in their minds that needs careful observation for anyone to see.

Observation, I’ve learned, is something that can be applied from art to life.  A painting of a tree with an assumed ‘green’ will never be as alive as a painting of a tree with all its layers of greens. We just have to stop and look. Deeply. Wholeheartedly.

Because the world in watercolour is a beautiful place. To appreciate it fully, we need observation and patience.