Recent Sketches

I started this blog with the intention of it being a kind of sketchbook diary, hence its title. Since then though it has changed and developed and now contains more finished studio work than field sketches. Ten years or so ago, pretty much all I was doing was sketchbook work with very little, and in some years no finished studio pieces being produced. Now I seem to have turned full circle, with nearly all of my time taken up with studio work and very little time being spent outdoors. I need to redress this balance, ideally I would like to set aside some time each day for some serious observational drawing, even if only for half an hour or so. The following are some recent sketches made over the last month, actually they are the only sketches I have made over the last month. So you can judge for yourself how much time has been spent outside, (even some of these were drawn from inside the house looking through the windows!).

A dejected looking Dunnock in the back garden in a heavy rain shower.
6b Progresso Graphite Pencil.

A Heron sketched as it flapped lazily overhead as I sat in a supermarket carpark.
Rotring Art Pen.

Two Jays sat on the fence at the bottom of mums garden. Eyeing up the fat balls hanging from the birdtable, trying to work out how to get to them.
Rotring Art Pen.

A female Sparrowhawk drawn as it flashed passed chasing a Blackbird. The drawing on the left is all wrong the wing shape looks more like a harrier!
Rotring Art Pen.

This afternoon we had an hours walk around Winscar Reservoir on the northern edge of the peak district. This Common Sandpiper was on the edge of the shoreline, the Wheatear on the moor above the reservoir.

Common Sandpiper.
Rotring Art Pen

Female Wheatear
6b Progresso Graphite Pencil and Watercolour.