This lunchtime I returned to the Barbican intending to seek out a quiet spot next to the ponds. Originally I intended to draw a close-up of one of the towers but the brickwork wasn't as interesting as I'd anticipated; however while doing this I noticed the water lilies in the pond and idly wondered if I could draw them. The problem, as I saw it, is that the leaves have a lot of detail but there isn't a defined boundary unless you want to draw the whole pond - so it would be easy to get carried away and not finish the picture.
In the end, after quietly observing, and drawing with my eyes by following the outlines of the leaves, I settled on a section of lily pads which contained a number of beautiful flowers and a feasible amount of detail:
The first thing that struck me is how large a part perspective needed to play in my picture; the nearer leaves appeared to be at least four times the size of the furthest leaves and somewhat wider than they were deep. Also there was plenty of layering of the pads and so I needed to draw them in a sensible order. In the end I started sketching the very closest leaves and worked my way round in a clockwise direction - paying special attention to the flowers:
On the whole I rather like this picture as the perspective really works and your eye is drawn towards the furthest edge by the flowers and the leaves. However the limitations of working in pen and pencil are very apparent as adding colour would really bring out the vegetation in a drawing like this.