Pin the colour down before it fades

Reduced Flowers, pastel on paper 15 x 14 cm, pastel on paper

Sunday Morning! I bought some reduced flowers early last week and plunked them in a vase by the door to take out to the studio to draw.  They sat there.  I was too busy making monoprints painting portraits and looking at beautiful paintings at Christie's… so about a week from purchasing them, those poor flowers were on their last legs and hadn't been drawn.  I couldn't let that happen. 

The orange under the jam jar is a pair of PJs I bought from Anthropologie in their reduced reduced sale - I have been meaning to hem them for years, literally. The pattern to the left at the top is a scarf I got at a charity shop last year and the fuscia on the right is an Indian top that I got at the car boot a few years ago. The green cup was an early wedding present from Patrick when we'd first moved to Singapore.  The purple is a placemat I bought in Rome.  There is a cheese knife from south Africa on it and the book came from a used bookstore in the Southwest. 

This small drawing took most of the day.  In the past I might have stopped when it was freer and created the mood without pinning everything down.  Perhaps I will return to that approach.  Tomorrow when the sun comes up I will look again at the right of the jam jar lid.