Hibiscus (September)

On iPad David Hockney draws in colour every morning a flower. Touch the screen and usual forms take animated shape. Thumb and forefinger direct vermilion shadow behind bending pink petals. Brushes app, a paintbox of pixels, supplies bright yellow outlines, more California than Yorkshire. Stylus styles a cut glass vase from dozens of white jabs. It’s a ‘painting’ smoother than any canvas, outside it might be September somewhere. Then David Hockney lines it up and iPhones the flower to his e-list. Facebook, even. It pulses in a darkened gallery near you, or on your screen, like a work of nature.