March, which is supposed to be my ‘break month’, is turning out to be very busy. But it is a nice busy-ness. I have lots of outings scheduled – catching up with visiting and local art friends, who in many ways are work colleagues. When we get together it is not just social, we often talk about art concepts and projects and work-related challenges. I know that my ‘work’ looks very much like ‘play’ at times but I rarely have a switch-off time in my 6 day week. (Sunday is my day of rest and workshop – a complete recharge of the full me!)

Getting out and about more lately, rather than being chained to my computer at home has been a lot of fun but after the buzz of a few sketching days out in the past week, I am feeling very restless in the evening if I hadn’t sketched that day. Working at home has its advantages but I do miss being out and about on a daily basis.

On Thursday evening I did a couple of’ object sketches’ to record a few things of trivial significance during the week (including a plastic bucket with a pair of rubber gloves!) which was fun, but I wasn’t satisfied. So sitting in my thinking and writing chair, I sketched the view. Ah! that hit the spot! I am really enjoying sketching complex scenes at the moment.

This is done with a new mixed warm grey DeAtramentis ink in my Green Sailor pen with a 55 degree Fude nib. I have been using a hero 578 (very similar nib) with Super5 Frankfurt but the pen is really to heavy for my hand at the moment…so I replaced the Black in my sailor with a similar colour and this will work better – much better for me.