When I was growing up, I spent an awful lot of time doing watercolour painting, particularly during the long summer holidays. Around the age of eight or nine, my parents bought me a modest tin of paints, a few brushes, and a pad of heavy paper, and from that moment on, I was pretty much hooked.
I usually set up my makeshift studio at the dining table or out on the patio whenever the British weather was cooperative. Most of the time, I worked on my pieces alone, but on weekends my grandfather would often keep me company. He wasn't particularly artistic himself, but he was brilliant at pointing out small details in nature and encouraging me to mix colours rather than just using them straight from the pan. We would sometimes walk down to a local canal path, and I'd sit on a folding stool trying to sketch and paint the old stone bridges or the reflections in the water.
I think what I loved most about it was the sheer freedom and sense of mindfulness it provided. At that age, so much of life revolves around rules and structured schoolwork, whereas painting felt entirely unconstrained. I could get completely lost in the process, experimenting with brush strokes and seeing how the pigments bled into wet paper. It served as a wonderful creative outlet, and even though my early attempts were quite messy and amateurish, finishing a painting gave me a genuine sense of pride and fulfilment.