A mere few months ago I was lusting after some kind of Supernote gadget, a kind of e-ink ‘paper tablet’ that I could carry around and write maths on and definitely do drawings and sketches more than never, without needing to plonk myself in front of the computer and start up Krita for any of it. I went through a bit of a cycle, deciding that I really did want one after all, then moving towards buying one only to find that it would be even more than I expected, sit on it some longer and start again. That repeated …

Last year was nice and all, but by the end of it I thought, this is nothing like what I ‘usually’ (implies free time) do; if part of the goal is to practise then next time I should do something more in line with my typical approach. So, more about shapes and shading than lines and stark contrast.

Hence were born the RULES:

• one hour

• one layer

• one colour

• one scale

• one attempt

Basically a bunch of things to focus on streamlining the drawing process and not get hung up on diversions. It’s not really ‘ink’ besides the lack …

This was an attempt to do the thing where you draw the whole thing in greyscale and then slap colour on at the end. It was supposed to make it easier to focus on shadows and texture and all that. But after investing however much effort, I found right at the end that Krita’s idea of how the ‘colour’ blending mode should operate was at extreme odds with common sense. I managed to rescue it in the end, but the ultimate result is that there’s no variation in colour beyond shade.

That’s what experimentation is for but …