For this exercise I wanted to set up a still life and select objects that seem to connect naturally. I have wanted to draw more naturally occurring domestic scenes for a while and now Sal is back to full time work and study, I am trying to help more around the house within the confines of my health. One of those jobs is to help with the washing up.

We are both tidy and pretty systematic in our approach to tasks so that natural order is present in how we even wash up. I tend to stack items in order of when they are washed up. Glass first, then cutlery, followed by cups and crockery, then dirtier items such as pans and recycling packaging.

We have had a new kitchen installed and it makes for a nice location and backdrop for what I wanted to draw.

I just used a normal kitchen chair to sit at to draw so this gave me a pretty level viewpoint to draw from. I had an A3 sketchboard propped on a drawing board with my knee for support.

I wasn't brave enough to tackle with pen straight off so did a 4H pencil sketch first to try and get a sense of composition and scale.

I then used the sketch as the basis to ink using a Uni Pen Fine Line 0.1.

Relatively happy with this as a first attempt but realise I got the scale wrong on the washing up side completely. Think also my pen work to denote the walnut effect backsplash isn't totally convincing.

I used a Paynes Grey watercolour pencil to mark in some tone which has lifted it a bit but think now the backsplash looks worse.

I always had the idea to do two of these drawings - a before and after. Both would show the order we have when washing up and both would feature the sink as the continued presense.

Again I started with a pencil sketch and think this time I was more successful with proportions. I also think I made a better job of the backsplash and generally there is a better sense of depth front to back with this drawing.

I left the light as ambient just using the overhead undercounter strip light. I think image there is very little if any tonal information and that was deliberate as I wanted this one to be just about line.

For the second drawing I used my Safari Lamy fountain pen and felt much more comfortable drawing with it. Maybe because its the pen I use most. The line weight is also heavier which I prefer but I could have achieved this with the micro pen too if I had chosen one of the larger nib sizes I have, maybe 0.5 for example.