monstera jungle snake study
process diary > sketchbook
I painted this monstera & snake study very slowly, over the course of a week or two, in fragments, as part of my morning ritual. ten minutes one morning, thirty minutes another morning. strangely, on more than one occasion, it would start thunder and raining as soon as I sat down to work. the whole room would get dark. I’d drink my coffee, listen to music, and figure out what my monstera needed today.
maybe I was also a bit nervous because it was the first time I’d touched my gouache paints or watercolor paintbrushes in almost five years. the last time I remember painting with gouache was in 2019, when I did these. last month, I wrote about starting a new sketchbook and drawing first snake.
painting this felt a little like being back in art class, again. there is something so freeing about a “study” — because even for just ten minutes or an hour, you can forget about complicated things and just think about the light and shadow and exact shade of green or yellow or the sheen of blue you see, underneath the leaf. at the end of the day, this is all that life is. seeing.
and… well, of course it could be better, but mostly I think it turned out fine.
oh, and the monstera is mine. the snake I imagined.
