Going tiny today; two ceramic birds that fell off a wind chime in the garden, a shell, a pencil, and an eraser on a black paper background. The sketch took about 10 minutes because I’m trying to be quick and loose (careless? casual? nonchalant?). 9B pencil and my trusty Derwent battery operated eraser with a new bit in its teeth.

Conte crayon with objects picked out using the eraser. Similar quality to those first photos of Ultima Thule!

The next page is that (totally self-inflicted) mauve. And the still life has been rearranged; cheers Flora.

I set out to pinch Marija’s microtome sectioning approach with some lovely lines that make up the shape without detailing the shape, but as I’m not her the outcome is quite different as it should be. Essentially her idea though. This is coloured pencil on mauve sugar paper which I’ve pasted like leaves into my sketchbook. The idea being to create a challenge each time by upsetting the expectation of a stark white ground.

This close up shows the fibres in the paper which influenced how the medium worked – easy but nowhere close to the tendency towards technical that I can find myself searching for (without actually liking very much in my own work) and never quite achieving. Maybe that’s because imprecise feels more real to me than the perfectionism that seems often to be accompanied by lifelessness.

That’s today done. Over and out.

And yes, that’s a left handed pencil sharpener. Watch any leftie trying to operate a right handed one and you’ll see what we go through to ‘get the point’.