How long is it since I took time off to go down the garden and
just sat and draw for the pleasure of it?
Well, it seems like a long time, but it's so simple to do: I just
decide to award myself twenty minutes between all the catching up
we're doing. Resisting the temptation to spend five minutes brushing
the bird droppings off the old bench on the lawn I sit down on it
and start drawing the spiky rushes in front of
me.
A Constellation of Hardheads
I soon realise that most of this clump, apart from a few dried
grass stems (probably Yorkshire Fog), consists of the knobbly seedheads
of knapweed, also known as hardheads.
The stems are blowing about a bit in a gentle breeze which you
might think would make such a crossed-over arrangement impossible
to draw but I find the way around that is to concentrate on the
relative positions of the hardheads. They might sway from left to
right a little but the relative heights remain the same; the seedheads
don't slide up and down the stems at the same time.
I imagine triangles connecting each group of three seedheads and
continue from there, as if I was mapping a constellation.  |
