not a metaphor, an actual sneeze. full wet-in-wet sky, three hours in, going so well, and I sneezed and my hand jerked and there's a big wet blotch of cerulean off to the left where the sky should be clean. I just sat there holding the brush like an idiot.

the thing about watercolor that nobody who calls it "soft" or "gentle" understands is that it does not forgive you. you can't paint over it. you can't scrape it back without destroying the paper. oil people get to change their mind. I get one shot and a sneeze can take it. it's less like painting and more like chess, you're always playing three moves ahead and one wrong thing and the whole wash is dead.

anyway I'm not even mad about the sneeze, I'm mad that I knew better. I had a cold last week, I've been sneezing all morning, and I still set up a big graded wash instead of working on the little gouache studies I actually planned to do. I got greedy because the light through my window was doing something I've been chasing for like two months and I thought I could catch it before it moved. I did not catch it.

I'm going to let it dry and see if it turns into anything. sometimes the accidents are the best part honestly, sometimes it's just trash and you start over. half the paper is still fine, I can crop it down to something small.

does anyone else have a rule about not doing the risky thing when you're tired or sick or whatever? I keep making the same mistake and calling it instinct.