Castle From the Past

Nesting today and under the weather, so am posting a rather nostalgic painting. This is one of my earliest watercolors at least that I still own. According to the signed date, I was just 15 years old...

Anyway, like many artists who look back at their earliest works, I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, it's fun to see your budding origins as an artist, isn't it? And on the other, the mature artist finds fault or at least discord with their current art "persona."

For example, why use such a somber Payne's Gray? A pigment that wouldn't be near my palette today. And what's going on with that heavy handed white gouache and low quality paper?

I've no idea where the original image source came from (pre Internet!) other than I was completely obsessed with France. A postcard from one of my many European pen pals (again, pre Internet) perhaps?

In the end though, what's important is that I must have enjoyed painting it, because more than 25 years later (yikes!) I'm still p
ainting. And I can't imagine my life today sans art.