Earlier today, I was sitting on a balcony at the hotel where I am staying for Christmas. It was a glorious 4 degrees in the mountains but the sun was shining, hitting the snow and the pine trees in a way that only nature can do, so it was pleasant to be outdoors. Foolishly, I was also attempting to render the scene before me in watercolour.
I am not falsely modest, so I am quite honest when I say my watercolour competencies have a long way to go. Intellectually, I know that less is more in watercolour: letting the paper do its job as white, using a limited palette, and understanding the impact of each stroke. And, quite excitingly for me in the medium, allowing for serendipity. Water can behave unpredictably and that can lead to many happy accidental outcomes.
Today, however, I was having none. I was laying on colour, hoping to capture the range of mountains receding into the hazy horizon, all purples and magentas, and the forested foreground of filigreed branches, silhouetted dark against the shimmering snow. But when I looked at my picture critically, I had succeeded only in painting mud.
Beneath my balcony, on the now frozen hotel swimming pool, a young man skated. He held a hockey stick in his hand and languorously pursued the puck he was nudging over the surface of the ice. He was all confidence and relaxed youth, golden in the late afternoon light. Each time he neared the goal, he tensed, drew back in a well practised motion and drove the puck into the back of the net.
As I paused in my awkward and clumsy efforts, I considered that he had become effortless through much effort.
Only in diligently doing can we ever become instinctive in knowing what to leave out. When we are learning, knowing what matters and what will be necessary to carry with us into expertise is impossible to know.
Right now, my watercolour is overworked and under-skilled. But by putting in a little bit of effort each day, I hope some day for it to be effortless.