American artist/icon Andrew Wyeth once said, “I’ll take weeks out doing drawings, watercolor studies, I may never use.  I’ll throw them in a backroom, never look at them again or drop them on the floor and walk over them.  But I feel that the communication that has seeped into the subconscious will eventually come out in the final picture.”

When you look at Andrew Wyeth’s art you see many sparse, simple looking compositions.   Most people including yours truly, are drawn to his wonderful art.  I recently was teaching an art class on composition and I used Wyeth’s paintings as a starting point.   His work seems to have the perfect amount of visual interest and exquisite technique, but not too much!  We studied pictures of his sketches in both pencil and watercolors.  Then we discussed the great finished paintings that came from those sketches.  He obviously starts with a visual idea and then lets the the place or person seep within him.  Many of the preliminary sketches don’t look like much at all. The end result is amazing.   So…. if that watercolor sketch or drawing doesn’t look great, no worries.   It is still helping you develop those visual ideas.  Think of all your sketching/doodling as an important step in building a great visual piece of art work.  Here’s a link to some beautiful Andrew Wyeth images  https://www.pinterest.com/jandisch/andrew-wyeth/