Why I draw the same flower forty times

Repetition gets a bad name. People assume the thirty-eighth marigold is a failure of imagination, when really it is the first time I have actually seen the flower.

The first ten drawings are me drawing my idea of a marigold. The next ten are me negotiating with it. Somewhere around thirty, the flower gets bored of performing and just sits there, being a flower — and that’s when the drawing starts.

Against novelty

Instagram rewards the new thing. The eye, it turns out, rewards the same thing looked at longer. These are not compatible reward systems, and I have chosen the slower one, mostly because it makes me happier and partly because I’m stubborn.

Draw the flower. Draw it again. Report back at forty.