Back to almost normal for one day. I had my weekly class today instead of tomorrow as we are going up to London for the SBA Christmas meeting.

A lot of the teaching today was based around form and observing tonal values relative to the light source. Sometimes students find this a difficult area, particularly if the surface area of the subject is very uneven and absorbs the available light.

It can sometimes help to use a substitute smooth shape, to work out the underlying tonal values and thus the form. For example, with a spherical shape there might be difficulties in determining where the light falls and what is in shade, depth of shade and areas of reflective light. One can use a ball as a substitute and cover it with cling film to make the surface smooth. This will in turn reflect light well and highlight differences in tonal values creating a clearer three- dimensional form. The complications of texture, patterns and colour are reduced during this phase and can be added once the shape and form have been established.

Palmengarten news. Sue has had a good day at Palmengarten with a lot of interest again both in the gardens and the botanical art exhibition. She was very relieved to experience that this evening the trains were at last running normally and she got home at an acceptable time.

There are three new green dots on pictures indicating that they have been reserved!

Artwork by Sue Wickison

Artwork by Sarah Caswell & Linda Hampson

Artwork by Angeline De Meester & Sandra Armitage

Artwork by Elisabeth Sherras Clark & Sue Wickison