in the evenings I sit in the corridor and copy the artwork on the walls; I managed to swap one drawing (a Van Gogh image of lillies) for two packets of Opal Fruits (or "Starburst", as they are currently known), my favourite so far is the Hepworth "holes" picture. . .

. . . some people walk straight past as I draw others want to look (but I'm shy!), some sit down and we talk about art - have had some lovely converstations about Hepworth's studio and the sculpture in its garden atop the hill at St Ives (now part of The Tate)

yesterday I had all day with which to occupy myself so I sat in the garden and drew (or attempted to) the things I can see from my "not raining/50%+" place

the well stocked garden border which I look along the length of stretched out in front of me - the "daisy" plant, with its dead heads, its new buds, the white petalled bright yellow centred flowers and all; something with big curly thick leaves and short fibrous stems, that look like stubby rhubarb, but isn't rhubarb; something with big zig-zaggedy-jaggedy-spikey leaves and long stalks of many individual flowers that are a little like a cross between snap dragons and foxgloves; something with big crinkly purple petalled flowers with orangey-yellow centres, on the end of long straggley stalks; the generously proportioned poppy, upon which originally when I arrived there were many pale lilac coloured petals, now it's just the seed heads, slowly turning from a pea green to a crisp dried up yellow; some orange lilies, some yellow lilies and some deep deeep deep almost black purple lilies; a hugely-tall-elongated-reaching-to-the sky thistle, the flower heads of which have had waves of tiny lilac flowers travelling up and down them - attracting many a bumble bee. . .

the view looking up thru the blossoming cherry tree I drew the branch, twigs, and stalks of the leaves, and the leaves themselves as they overlapped and their colours changed as the sunlight dappled thru them

then! it occured to me that was was most interesting was the dappled sunlight - coming thru the gaps between the leaves - rippling over my paper (like many small pebbles being thrown in a pond at random intervals) as I drew my chosen image

so I drew the shapes of the sunlight on the page quite tricky, as it was very breezy and the leaf shadow sunlight ripples were moving and flowing across the page totally randomly

I ended up with some lovely sheets in my sketch book full of odd-shaped-not-quite-circular/oval/elipse/rings and overlapping curly lines. . .

it was a strange sensation, drawing light and I have no idea if I will be able to add colour, or how - but the simple black lines on a white background are quite effective

:-)