I’ve spoken often about how I love to go walking in my neighbourhood, and I didn’t let the previous night’s storm put me off. It was still blowing furiously yesterday when I took off, cap on under my red jacket hood. Sunglasses too, to keep the wind and salt air out. The debris on the footpath had me stop at the end of the block, and there I stooped to uplift a fine collection of fallen goods. I picked up a large leaf, (from a magnolia I guessed), two small pōhutukawa leaves sporting radiant autumn colours, a seed of some sort and a small feijoa. Feijoas are loved and disliked in equal number here. I love them. To eat, one should slice them in half and scoop out the middle with a teaspoon, But this fallen delicacy was way too small to eat.

On arriving home, I rescued my treasures from a pocket and changed into dry clothes. Next, I lay the items on my art paper. Usually I show you the steps I take while sketching from initial layout to finished work. Today I have decided to reverse the order; so the finished piece first, as above, and the mid-way sketch below.

And last is the initial sketch, where I laid out the items on my art paper and began working on the large leaf first, then the seed and feijoa. In a way I wished I’d stopped here, as I decided to ‘fix’ the colour by briefly squirting the drawing with ‘workable’ art spray; meaning that one should be able to keep working on the drawing once dry (but more on that below). And now for the initial sketch.

Remember I mentioned the spray? Well, the following dayI went to apply more colour in order to keep blending several tones, when I realised that should not have used the spray. I found I couldn’t layer the colours as I had been doing, with ease. I was frustrated, but kept sketching, as I wanted to complete the drawing. You may not notice that I had this problem, but those who make art will know the kinds of challenges we are up against if we do things we ought not do! Still, I love using these Faber Castell polychromos (artist quality) pencils, as they are soft, yet can be sharpened to a nice point when needed (use a scalpel blade and not a sharpener for best results), and they can produce such vibrant colour.

I taught myself how to sketch with these pencils, as it is always a trial and error kind of activity which shows you how different mediums work. With this sketch I would have used about ten different colours. Looking, layering, blending and starting again. And, for all I told you I almost messed up, I am happy with producing these little fallen things in their splendid autumn colours.