Despite the fact that the bulk of the 2D pieces ink on paper I made (& continue to make) during COVID could not be charitably called anything but doodles, practise is practise, and I slowly improved. Or at least, old skills returned. The oak leaves in particular seem to be transitioning from the flat, henna based patterns to something that depicts more realistically the rippling qualities of drying leaves. The big flowers are sort of transitional, with henna-type centers, but more dimensional outer petals (or perhaps they're bracts;) The drawing also includes several fills—sakura style notched blossoms (left edge), broken cirles, stippling, and wheatgrass (the 120 angled one) and finally, the interlocking circles pattern, but that one still has a ways to go—I'm not really very comfortable with it.

microns on a Japanese appointment diary. Completed 07oct20, microns on paper, approximately 8.25 x 5.5" 1/200 sec, f2.3 +1.0 ev Lumix LX100 07Oct20. Sharpening, transform, cropping, and colour adjustment in gimp applied.

The goldenrod plume ...is just weird. (It's vaguely a nod to the way Alfonse Mucha tended to portray complex flowers of this type: usually with a heavy outline, and a division into two planes, light and dark, an elegant method for simplifying all that texture. Needless to say, I'm still working on getting that right.)

Though I am pleased with the cross-hatching, especially on the leaves, on this one.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.