Last Wednesday’s session was our last with Orlando. He is an excellent teacher. We had a harpist playing for us all day. It was so beautiful! To draw and listen to the refined music, trying to capture the movement and feel of the sound felt heavenly.

Orlando described how a photograph could never capture the richness of the scene. He said the image would have been flat and devoid of the emotion imparted through the playing of the music. Only drawn or painted art could capture this.

However, I had a hard time. He rightly pushed us out of our comfort zones making us look and draw in new kinds of ways. Here, we were asked to focus on the tones of the setting not the lines of the objects or figure. I had started with hard edged washes which looked too comfortably and memetic, similar to some of the other ink drawings I’d done before. Orlando said ‘start again, completely wet the page and have another go’. I’d not even got properly started yet with the depth of tones we were working towards. I felt deflated as the drawing looked alright and now I was being told to ‘wash it out’. But Orlando was right. Somehow the necessary delicacy of the wet paper worked with the light touches of ink to capture the sounds of the harp. A whole new way of working.