Laura's cabbage. On the allotment. This afternoon. I was planting onions. I'd just plugged the leak in the water-butt which Thomas found on a skip. And I'd discovered that making a trestle out of old pallet wood would take longer than anticipated. So I wandered off to sketch. Laura is a green-fingered, multi-tasking mum who is so good at growing veg that she can treat her allotment as a larder. This fine specimen is one of many which flourish in well-tended boxed beds. Amazing. On the right is a blue plastic pipe to support netting, but I'd rather run out of blue - and it was quite cold en plein air today so I couldn't linger. I began with pencil to map out the shapes, then I added ink for definition before slapping on paint more casually than usual. I actually became intrigued with the pebbles and stones in the earth - but dusk was falling. So I stopped. |