Cover of School Sketchbook #2
Being familiar with the debutante realtor as I found myself, I knew the images that defaced the exterior of the second School Sketchbook (SSB.2) came not from her fair hand but from the grotty dexters of her immediate vicinity. It is in no way a coincidence that the prevalence of these images corresponds with Naomi's commencement of her eighth school year. One cannot resist but to regard the besmirching/bastardisation of the young scholar's original decorations (the influence of her 'friends') as a victory for the lumpen cultural over the effervescent indigenous (peer pressure - what a ghastly term). Thank goodness that her taste of her associates did not affect the interior of the document.
The second School Sketchbook is dominated by what appear to be preliminary sketches of assorted flowers. Preliminary in the respect that despite their uniform excellence, the entirety of the sketchbook-bound illustrations is realised in a larger form exterior of the sketchbook, each with its own minor alterations. One regards the urgent necessity of these floral drawings as responses to the claustrophobia of the hospital ward in which her father lingers on the crest of his imminent demise. Rather than give her father flowers, the young artist dazzles her elder with these set of careful considerations of the botanical form. It should also be mentioned that it was for these loving creations that the young artist gained external recognition with the award of the North Kent Student Art Prize (indeed some of the drawings retain the original mount upon which the judges eyes would have fallen). It must also be added that as part of her prize, the fledgling artist was awarded an A4 hardbound sketchbook that would later site the outpourings registered in the Private Sketchbook.
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