This is my quick sketch of G's artichokes. I'd finished the trestles and tried out the picnic 'table'. Not the steadiest but since it was made out of pallet wood, we're not complaining. Elsewhere, there are more things growing than I'd have thought - including G's silvery green artichoke leaves. Their jagged flamboyance reminds me of acanthus - first seen and identified on Corinthian capitals and learnt off by heart in those schoolboy orders: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian from Banister Fletcher's book of architecture. Only later did I see the real thing with its glossy leaves and spires of white and bloodshot flowers. I began slowly with pencil, but the cold drove me towards pen and make me scramble around outlines and plunge into pools of shadow. I went home for some 'colouring in'. Lockdown disintegration. |