A Ninety-Minute Ride, Three Watercolors

Today I rode to TANK Shanghai. It took an hour and a half each way.

That is farther than I would usually want to go. You can paint anywhere; there is no need to spend three hours on the journey. Besides, it was not as if I had never been to the area. I lived nearby for a year, back when I had a dog, and often walked along the river. It was familiar ground, without the novelty that might make me feel I simply had to paint it.

But this time was different. I had not seen a painting friend, an older woman I am close to, for nearly three months. She had missed our previous sketching outing, and somehow we had kept missing each other. Last year we went out to paint almost every week, especially in September and October. The weather was just right, and we could sit together for a while after painting.

Count it up, and it does not seem that long; think about it another way, and it feels like quite a while. Three hours on the road might seem a poor bargain. But when I was going to paint with a familiar friend, where we painted and what we painted became less important. I can paint alone at home, but who I paint with makes a difference.

I wanted to go. That settled it.

Only after setting out did I realize I had misjudged the day

I had stayed home for the past few days. Through the window, all I saw was bright sunshine, so I assumed it was still warm and went out in something light.

Only once I was riding did I realize how cool the wind felt.

And it is not just this year. Shanghai seems to have skipped the in-between seasons these past few years. When it is hot, it stays hot. Then suddenly it is cold. That comfortable stretch of neither hot nor cold seems to get passed over. Often, before I have even noticed autumn arriving, the chill has settled in. The autumn clothes in my wardrobe barely get worn. Today, in my thin clothes, I had run straight into that change.

When I reached TANK Shanghai, there was another surprise. From previous experience, I expected it to be quiet on a weekday, with plenty of peace by the river for painting. Instead, there was a LEGO flower exhibition, crowds of people, and a long stretch of the riverside fenced off for an event. I do not like crowds, especially when I am painting. People coming and going to look, or someone standing opposite and staring, make that next brushstroke feel a little awkward.

Still, there was not much to complain about. They had come for the flower exhibition, not for me. I moved to a less crowded spot and sat down anyway.

The tanks themselves did not seem all that interesting to paint

It is funny: at first, I had not particularly wanted to paint the tanks.

Before we came, I had said to my friend: what is so interesting about those big cylinders? I could paint them from a photograph at home; there was no need to travel all that way. Standing in front of them, I still felt much the same. They were too regular, too still. They did not quite give me that urge to sit down and paint.

But my friend wanted to paint them, so why not? For me, what I paint matters less than the act of sitting down to paint. Since I was there, I opened my sketchbook, and brushstroke by brushstroke, I found my way into it.

I made three paintings. One by the river. Later, we moved to the edge of the lawn in front of the tanks, where I sat down and painted another. When that was done, I turned my head a little and painted a third.

Chatting while painting is probably the best part of going out sketching. Neither our conversation nor our hands stopped.

After three, the sky began to darken

Sometime after three in the afternoon, the sky clouded over and the light began to fade. Worried that the wind would get stronger, and that it might rain, I packed up early and rode home. Once there, I fell onto the bed and slept for three hours.

When I woke, it was dark, and I was still a little dazed. That sleep after coming home felt as though it had made up for a little of the rest I had been missing lately.

My hand had not gone rusty. I was the one who had changed

Looking back, I have barely picked up a brush these past three months.

Most of my time has gone into working with AI, making content and developing projects. Painting has been pushed further down the list. In all those months, I have only properly gone out sketching three or four times. I had worried that I would be rusty, that I would sit down and find I could not paint. But once I started, it was all right. My hand felt more familiar than I had expected. I still knew how to put down a stroke.

Other things, though, had quietly changed. Last year, my friend and I met weekly and painted often. Sitting together again this year, I realized that the way I usually paint now is quite different from last year's. It gradually took shape early this year. The person is the same, and so is the brush. Yet what comes out on the paper belongs to another stretch of time.

My friend asked: now that the weather had finally cooled down, would we start going out to paint more often again? I said, yes, let us get out there.

Before the cold really settles in, while my hand is still warmed up.

One more thing: I will soon announce an in-person watercolor workshop here in Shanghai. If you would like to start painting but do not know where to begin, keep an eye out.

This is one of Shanghai's most colorful times of year. The trees change one by one, and every park looks different. We only get this scene once a year. It is just the right time to go out together, take a walk and paint what we see. Do not miss it.