Wild and Wintery!

Brrrrrr! It’s chilly here, so time to head out to do some wintery sketching! In my sketchbook I'd noted the fabulous quote about winter from Andrew Wyeth and here we go looking at the bones of winter! 

I love the chiaroscuro effect of winter, the trees become dark squiggles but because the leaves are missing you can see the fabulous shapes of trees, silhouetted against the snow and skies. 

Make no mistake sketching at -1C is a challenge freezing fingers (and other extremities even with something to sit on) and the problem of drying if you decide to use watercolour which I did! This involves walking home with your sketchbook open and trying to keep everything flat so the paint doesn’t run! I must admit maybe that might have been a nice touch, (try to remember that for the next time). 

What about that for an inspiring sky …. the colours were much more intense than it looks in my photo however. 

Being out and about with my lovely Urban Sketching group has opened my eyes to the fact that I'm a wee bit stuck in my ways with sketching, some of my fellow sketchers are so experimental with techniques or pre-finished, coloured backgrounds or only working with one think paintbrush and splashy ink, that said when I open my sketching kit it feels a bit like slipping into a comfy pair of slippers (or so I imagine, I've never had slippers). You know what you've got and how it works, that’s not to say that every sketch is a winner …. far from it but you don’t have to fight with equipment and subject. 

Leaving your comfort zone is scary but you never know you might discover something new that leads you in a completely new direction!