128. Yummy Fruit

Pilot G-Tec C4 Watersoluble pen

on Arches watercolour paper, 4" x 4"

We had a bereavement at Easter and we've been travelling up and down the motorway, preparing photographs and the order of service, etc. It's been a sad time which is why I've not posted for so long - please accept my apologies.  After I came out of hospital recently, a dear colleague and friend visited, bringing along this yummy fruit - pineapple, mango, pomegranate, dates and brazil nuts. The colours were great so I couldn't resist rearranging a few and taking a few photographs as I knew I'd want at least to sketch them later on down the line; I'm glad I did. Needless to say, although the nuts and dates lasted a little longer than the soft fruit, we polished them off long ago!

Drum Leaf Binding

A while ago I discovered 'drum leaf binding' which is a great way of putting illustrated or photographed pages together - you end up with completely flat spreads (actually they open backwards) so you don't lose anything into the gutter of the page. You also end up with double-thick pages so wet applications of paint, markers, etc, are unlikely to bleed through to the neighbouring page. (It's also good for doing panoramic images.) I was curious to give it a try so bought a few large sheets of different types of watercolour paper. It's tricky but I was so pleased with the result that I made a little case for it using fabric-covered greyboard. I then cut out some coloured endpapers and bound it all into a proper sketchbook.  I wish you all a happy, healthy and hopefully arty weekend.