Sugar skull surrounded by flowers

The last sheet is pinned above my bench now, and the lamp is the only light left on in the whole street. Mr Okonedo wants the skull finished by Friday, and I have spent three nights on the eyes alone. Every ring has to be counted. Twelve bands of hatching in the left one, eleven in the right, because he says the right eye has always been the nosier of the two and needs keeping in check. I told him that was nonsense. He said nonsense is what keeps a pattern honest.

Something about the triangles stopped me on Tuesday. I kept drawing them solid, the way the catalogue print showed them, and each time he came in out of the rain he would tap the sheet and shake his head. "Leave the middle white," he said. "Nothing goes in there. That is where the light gets through." I said the middle of a triangle was only paper, and he laughed the way he laughs when he has already won.

So I did it his way. Tonight I stippled dots around the edge of each eye until the bands were nearly black, then left the centre bare, a clean pale point with the streetlight from the window sitting right on it. Standing back, I swear the paper glowed. The skull looks out across the room as if it has been waiting for someone to come in late.

I'll post the drawing to you on Monday. Keep the kettle on, and don't let the damp get to the sheet.

Love, Tom