Learning a craft takes a lot of practice. When I was stil pretty new to watercolor painting, I used to try to paint on any type of paper and thin cardboard.

Not all of it worked. Art calendars featuring photographic art have a lot of marble dust in them. Paint sits on top until it dries. Made for some interesting experiments.

Then for a while I used mixed media papers, they worked better and I still have a few of those paintings.

Lately I’ve gone into 200 gsm paper specifically made for watercolor and since I have a problem throwing out good things that might be useful one day, I swear I’ve hung onto every bit of used 200gsm paper I’ve painted, it seems like.

Of course I laugh at myself but then don’t throw anything, I have a bag full of painted scraps for collaging.

Recently I’ve felt the need to practise painting a ‘wash’ or ten. Something I have a lot of difficulty with. So ended up with ten washes on four sides.

Made them into a little art zine … if I have that terminology right. Here the back and front covers (three washes)

The story was going to be about a red planet but the nickety nog said No!

Several aspects about this booklet please me quite a lot. The size, a quarter of an A4 page. It’s just enough for a short fairy story. I like the way the torn edges of the pages look edged with gold.

‘Hariet Reed’ is a pen name scrambled from my real name. Good for the witch telling this story. I don’t like the stickers much, will rethink that aspect. The random design of the pages (all those washes) worked well.

The story became a dark in color as wel as plot little tale about a nickety nog demanding a five and after being offered various juicy morsels and rejecting them, stealing five gold coins.

The story lacks cohesion, there are a couple of glitches, as well as other things I could’ve done better. The gold coins for example.

Some of the coins are gold-leaf on pva glue, none of them turned out round and some were rounded later with acrylic paint. And then towards the end I thought might as well paint the whole coin with acrylic gold. Worked the best of the lot.

All useful things to remember for when I make the next little story book. Only the last two pages were over-painted to help the tale end.