Spring is Springing

I love this time of year as everything slowly turns green and comes into leaf. 

For my Drawing A Day this week I've been looking at different tree species - drawing their buds as a sketchbook study. I'm a bit of a tree geek and love how you can play detective and work out which trees are which. At this time of year the buds are one of the ways to identify the species (as well as the bark, remaining seeds and silhouette). I'm hoping to draw a few more this week and build up my collection. 

I also really like being able to tell what time of year it is in my Drawing a Day book when I flick through - maybe one year I'll manage to do a whole year as a nature journal...

Here is the process...

These studies are the starting point for another project I'm working on... but that's for another day!

2014

Apologies for the delay in updates, but fear not... the 'Drawing a Day' continues into 2014! I decided to carry on as I really enjoyed my daily drawings last year.

I have a lovely new sketchbook. It is one that I bought last summer at Art in Action, and have been saving since.
It is slightly smaller than last years book, which I hope may mean it can fit into a (large) pocket and venture out even more than the last one.
It also has much thicker paper, which I only realised on the 1st January, when I finally allowed myself to unwrap it from its cellophane. This discovery has enabled me to use watercolour and ink in a different way to the last book - it dries much faster (absorbs better) and doesn't seep through to the previous / next page in a distressing manner.

I have been experimenting with some black ink in a water brush, for quick application of shading or... general greyness!
The little black dog seemed a good place to trial it!

- this was particularly exciting as I found the £20 in a handbag that I had just decided to give to the Charity Shop. I thought I'd better just check the pockets before saying goodbye to it, and just as well I did - 2 IKEA pencils (!) and a £20 note. There was also a receipt in there, that was dated 2008, so I have a feeling these had been lurking there since then too!