Day 16

My final pear drawings and I hate to think what's been keeping them going for so long. My collection of papers from newspapers and magazines included a range of thicknesses and finishes from matt to shiny. I've enjoyed doing this and am pleased with the results, especially the right-hand pear where the gradations of colour are quite subtle.

Day 15

A delay in progress, the result of a very lovely long weekend with our son and his new wife.

Amazingly the pears linger on though the lushness of the last drawings has gone and now they're over-ripe like my drawings which seem to have lost some of the reflective quality built up through the routine of daily practise, though I'm sure it'll come again. Possibly it's the result of a certain staleness with the subject matter. Anyway, here are the felt tip pen scribbles, rather over-coloured and unsubtle. Interesting textured surfaces and a different angle for the smaller pear.

Day 14

Today I've experienced the highs and lows of drawing. compared with the oil pastel pear this is a dismal failure. It's been difficult with a more a limited choice of Stabilo colours to achieve the same richness. It may in part be the flat-looking background and maybe I need to work into this. There's a slight suggestion of depth in the Ligularia, but no more than that, and few of the lovely directional markings. This attempt serves only to show up the weak composition (the Modigliani Pear is still causing trouble). Oh dear.

I really enjoyed doing this and the result is pretty successful. My set of oil pastels (24 Rowney and Daler bought ages ago with 25% off) have a really good range enabling me to build the right colours. They also are perfect for making individual marks to show the roundness of the fruit. More work needed on the highlighted areas.

Day 13

It's taken me quite a time to complete this task as I've been experimenting with watercolour and inks on the photocopied sheets. I've been happiest with Koh-i-Noor with which it's possible to create strong colour but also let it down on the page. I know that's possible with watercolour too and maybe it's down to mixing colours more accurately. I wanted to add strong coloured fine detail to the centre of the flowers but was unable to achieve that; the very quality of mixing the paint on the page, which I like about Koh-i-Noor, made any small marks disappear. As for the highlights, I found the video to be essential and even so it's taken some practice to achieve them. Thicker than 100gram photocopy paper would have been better for painting. Finally after advice from Sian, I intend buying a few more better quality brushes.

Day 12

I've selected, in addition to the everlasting pears, the stem of ligularia in bold gold with a brown centre and the beautiful variegated nasturtium in vivid oranges with gold and crimson markings (tomorrow's task will be a tall order).

I seem to be forever complaining about the way the colour reproduces -- both on the blog and when printed out -- even though I'm lucky enough to have good quality kit. There must be a reason -- must investigate. It's such a pity as the rich burnt orange is a wonderful colour deepened with purple Koh-i-Noor for the shadows, though you need to work with it quickly as it dries leaving patches in unhelpful places.

Day 11

I've used Koh-i-Noor and my Stabilo pencils as suggested mixing the layers with a wet brush. The pears seem to change colour before my eyes, the palest colour an over-ripe gold which I achieved with the addition of purple a clever hint on my colour wheel, though the blog lacks the subtlety I though I'd managed to achieve. I've enhanced this with seeding to suggest the freckling on the pear's skin, but maybe French knots, my first instinct, would have been better. The darkest shade is an almost crimson blush so hard to achieve and even when I set the pear alongside it looked unreal. I've used Cretan stitch in space-dyed thread, echoing the shadows cast by the flower stems.

Why, oh why these reds and golds. I used them on my first Summer School and again recently? They don't really reflect the colours to which I feel naturally drawn.