Cold winter sketching

Saturday was cold but gorgeous and I played truant from what I should have been doing to take my sketchbook for an airing. It's a big A2 Moleskine which I am ashamed to say has sat on a shelf, pristine and virginal since it arrived last Christmas, over a year ago. I really need to get back into the habit of drawing from life again, even it it is just scribbles.

This is the kind of thing you don't often show people - it's simply an exercise in every sense of the word - in the same way that singers practise scales, dancers do barre movements, an artist needs to do the real eye/brain/hand thingy which hopefully one day will end up in some kind of finished form. It's not supposed to look pretty (though it's a bonus if it does).

Although there was a thin, mean wind, I forgot myself as I scribbled and scratched away. Once I started looking, I could have been out all day drawing - the line of oak trees in a hedgerow which would make a lovely little lino cut.

Everyone I met was (unusually) friendly - I think having a sketchbook is rather like having a dog - it gives you a legitimate reason to be out walking. For once I wasn't just the strange woman out alone with her camera. The horse chestnut avenue was beautifully stark, but I decided to save it for next time.

Spotted a potential picture with the farmhouse, which is unusual for me as I tend to prefer trees in the landscape. I've done this walk hundreds of times and am still finding fresh aspects of it.

This line of trees is definitely one to do another time - the clear winter sun brings out the acidic yellow lichen and the new red bark growth infuses the treetops with a warm blush.

I had one corner of my page to fill and of course, it was trees on the horizon.

Although my walk was only a couple of miles, I'd been out for two hours sketching. It doesn't look like much does it? Felt good though, flexing those out-of-practise drawing muscles.