Love Grows

Last week’s Life Book lesson was another tutorial with Angela Kennedy.  I really like Kennedy’s work because it is more illustrative and, therefore, more in line with my own style.  For this particular lesson, I actually chose to emulate Kennedy’s style.  Normally I try to mesh my own style with the lesson being tackled but for this one I capitulated not just out of time pressure and laziness (though both were undoubtedly a factor) but also because I wanted to concentrate more on the technique being taught than on coming up with my own composition and such like.

The technique in question was using coloured pencils over acrylic paint – and a background prepared with gesso.  Coloured pencils and I are not best friends.  People are often bemused to learn that I am so lacklustre with pencils.  They assume that if I can draw with ink and colour with ink and watercolour then I must find using coloured pencils a doddle.  Not so.  Childlike colouring I can do, of course, but doing anything more artistic has long eluded me.  A couple of years ago I snagged a lovely box of Prismacolor pencils that were going for a song and can confirm that the quality of the tools did not make much difference to my aptitude.  Good quality tools matter, of course, but what matters more is the ability of the person using them.  I am found lacking in this regard.  Nevertheless, I decided to give this lesson my best shot.  I think I just about pulled it off but I most definitely need more practice.