Each year I indulge my childhood memories by buying myself a bunch of New South Wales Christmas Bush (Cerapetalum gummiferum), to display on my festive table. This plant was grown around my family home in Sydney, but is too frost sensitive to last in Canberra’s icy winters – I know I’ve killed two plants already. This year I fleshed out the display with some other Australian daisies, the drumstick-like Billy Button (Crasspedia sp.) and another with chalky whitish green flowers, which I don’t recognise, but I assume is from Western Australia. At the last moment my partner added in a large branch of his Holly Oak (Quercus ilex) which lent quite a dramatic diagonal to the ‘arrangement’.

Once again I was practising my sight measurement and angle checking. I made a light pencil outline then worked, fairly freely over this with my Copic Multiliner.

Initial ink sketch with Copic Multiliner, 29 December 2014

I knew I wanted to add watercolour to the drawing so I set out to do this as simply as possible.

A Christmas arrangement, pen and watercolour, 29 December 2014

I am pleased with a finished result but again would like to re-visit the subject matter without using a sketch outline. Unfortunately I’ll have to rely, in part, on photos as the Christmas Bush is now way past it’s best.