Sketch 1 The first of three sketches I did recently using only watercolour (21 x 26 cm). I worked quicker than usual (allowed only 2 or 3 minutes per sketch) and used quite a large brush to take away some of the control and give a more gestural effect. With these watercolours I deliberately stuck to the (mainly earth) colours I’m using in oils as I find this helps me to prepare the oil palette later on. The dark lines were added at the end using a water soluble crayon. I tried to keep in mind things like variation in size and shape of marks; contrasts of dark against light; balancing warm tones and cool tones, although working quickly forces you to decide more by instinct than deep consideration. I hope that will be good practice for painting wet on wet in oils. Please do comment as its so useful to get feedback.