Frugality and dissatisfaction with an old work – I washed off an unsuccessful painting under running water with a stiff nylon washing-up brush in hand. This left the ink lines I had added to the original (in a desperate attempt to rescue a bad job!) so I painted over the whole image with red acrylic while the paper was still wet. When that was dry I painted the image again – actually using up leftovers in my palette rather than wash them away (more frugality).

The scene is a street cafe in Chania, Crete. The under-painting in red not only seals the water colour paper for more acrylics, I think it also adds a vibrancy to the simple shapes of the composition.