Original artwork description:

This is a drawing made using a pen dipped in black ink on white watercolour paper and is a whimsical and decorative picture of a slug encountering a daisy.

Slugs are not usually thought of as attractive, decorative or expressive. However, having included them in several of my paintings I found them delightful to draw. The softness of their bodies, their ability to form endless, elegant curves and the intimate and prolonged study that their small size and slow movement encourage made them a really rewarding subject.

Here, the positioning of the slug's antennae suggests that it is examining the daisy with interest and perhaps relish. The drawing was made at a time when I was having a lot of encounters with slugs in the flowerpots in my courtyard!

The technique used is very graphic and linear, with cross-hatching to create the shadows. The materials were Parker black ink on a 20cm x 20cm sheet of Hahnemule natural white, acid free, 300g/m2, hot pressed, watercolour paper. The drawing is initialled in the lower right.

Materials used:

black ink on white watercolour paper

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