"Faces of Music # 5 - N. Young"

I know the tendency when you are painting is to skip the hard work of a tight drawing and try to go straight to the painting with a minimalist sketch. This is a big mistake and one that all artist, including myself, make at some time. With a precise and detailed drawing it makes many of the decisions of color and balance for you. I try to color block all my paintings beforehand and decide many of the tough decisions before any paint is laid to paper. This does two things, speeds up the painting process and usually guarantees that no mistakes are made thus not ruining an expensive piece of watercolor paper. Watercolor affords you as the artist the ability to achieve bright colors and subtle hues but also eliminates the possibility of painting over any mistakes that you made - that's why it is called the "one shot" medium. Plan , color block and draw your painting first on separate paper so that iwhen you erase you don't scuff the surface of your watercolor paper. You can then transfer to your drawing to your choice of watercolor paper and not worry that the texture has been destroyed. Keep drawing and we will start painting soon. Enjoy!