I Will Always Be Happy to Show You My Colossally Bad Art: It’s how I get better

(All artwork in this post is mine. But then again, who would lay claim to it?)

I have been at this watercolor thing for a little while now. (A Facebook memory says it was about three years ago when I started taking it semi-seriously.) It is a thing I come back to again and again, even if I’m weeks between any kind of ink to paper, or even pencil to paper. I think it’s here to stay in my life.

I love sharing my work, and seeing the work of others. And I will always, always be happy to show off my worst work.

My culture as backdrop

I think a big part of this has to do with the way I grew up: the Taiwanese culture is big on telling things as they were. My grandpa called me “Meat Pie face” when I was a kid, because my face is…well, really round. And kind of big. And the number of times I’ve been called stupid over my lifetime is more than I can count on lots of fingers and toes, let’s just put it that way. It wasn’t the best way to raise a kid, but it did teach me to call a spade a spade. (Which, by the way, also isn’t the best way to make friends, or even…