Unfurling, watercolour and ink, 2015

Everything is bursting with life in May. Delicate wild apple blossoms are pale pink and elaborately unfurling ferns are bright green.

It is fun to shade with coloured pencils. The better quality they are, the better it works. I use Prismacolor Premier pencils. A simple shading exercise: use a light green down the left side of the fern stem pressing hard. Then apply a darker green next to it filling in the rest of the stem. Finally, use a very dark green or brown running down the right side on top the green that's already there. To get the almost white colour of the apple blossoms, try colouring them in very lightly with pale pink and then going over with your white pencil pressing very hard in a circular motion.