The idea of a cactus girl had been floating around in my head for a while and I decided that the plan was to scribble out a quick sketch and see if there was actually something worth developing. So I did this sketch on a scrap piece if mat board that I had laying around the studio. I wasn't really trying for anything special, just warming up my hand on a throw-away before I got down to work on the 'real' painting that day. Of course, everything comes out better than you thought it would when the pressure is off.
Since I didn't really know how to draw the tines of the cactus properly, I just drew them in lightly. I was hoping to get the idea of them, but not have them be too distracting because they were drawn incorrectly. I know what you're thinking. I could've gotten a picture to use as reference for the tines so they would look right AND I wouldn't have to write a goddamn paragraph making excuses for things being poorly done. Surely a sound theory, but that would've ended up crushing the spontaneity of the sketch. For me it's a dangerous spiral. Soon I'd be spending hours getting reference photos for every fucking thing on earth just in case I might need it and never doing any actual work.