It has rained every scrap of the day - very good for the plants that we put in yesterday and for the turf that was transplanted.  Our plans for another morning of gardening had, however, to be put on hold.  On the bright side it has meant a day in the studio with lots of sketching of 'little girl in the leaves' in Jardin du Luxembourg.  Whenever I am about to launch into a new painting I work around the subject first, thinking, planning, sketching, and generally building myself up to approaching the canvas.  Once I begin I tend to throw myself into covering the whole canvas with an underpainting with only light pencil marks to indicate the subject, allowing the paint to fill in the detail.  I like to focus on lights and darks and use negative space to map out the composition, but more of that next week!