The arty one

Some of you more dedicated readers (bless you) will know that drawing is one of my current interests - as well as gardens, plants, natural history, words. I've been spending the last few months (though only for a few hours a week) getting into some of the basics of drawing, with the help of Sam Horler at The Drawing Studio and the very classical Bargue Cours de Dessin.

I have been enjoying it enormously, which is not to say that there haven't been moments of teeth-grinding frustration... But all in all, the learning has been great and the taking time out to wield a pencil with some sort of serious intent has been very satisfying. It's a real 'in the zone' activity for me, which is wonderful in itself. The results are mixed but my hope is that it will help me draw better the things I love. Time will tell!

So, here's what I've been up to during this time of very traditional and classical training, it's a mixed bag of drawings and some of the things I see in these drawings make me wince a bit on looking at them now, but that's all part of the process. Dodgy phone pics all, but you'll get a sense of what has been going on.