This week I’ve been unsettled as I wait to receive my manuscript back from the editor, so I can go over my work for the last time. I have all the extra bits of writing required for sending off to publishers, even the dratted synopsis, waiting in the wings. The synopsis was scrutinised by my husband, daughter, and members of my writing group, and finally I was happy with it.

While pacing my study, I looked at the two beautiful persimmon I was given the other day languishing on my desk and knew what would help me relax. I would draw the fruit!

When using colour pencil I usually choose a smooth paper on which to draw, but today I decided on using a tinted A3 sheet of textured pastel paper. Canson Mi-Teintes, a hearty 160gms.

I set up both persimmon, but thought one was enough after I finished drawing the first. I mean, it would be like drawing identical twins! When doing such a sketch, I line up all the tones of colour I think I’ll need. It came to eight pencils all up; Faber-Castell artist quality polychromos. I started with Light Orange and built up the tones using Dark orange, Orange yellow, Vermillion, and Lemon cadmium. For the deeper tones I kept to browns, using Nougat, Van Dyke brown, and Dark sepia. To sharpen the outer line of the stalks I used a B pencil. Voila!