Odds And Ends

It's the time to gather up loose fragments and offcuts for slightly mystified inspection.  Before I get stuck into my seasonal artwork campaign (by which I mean complicated Christmas cards), I've looked through a variety of pads and books from this year to collect some snippets, drawn for a variety of purposes.

A bunch of sketchbook oddments from this year.

Next up are a couple of Autumn sketches.  This week I spent a couple of days scrub-bashing with the countryside team in Queen Elizabeth Country Park, between Portsmouth and Petersfield.  We were lopping and sawing thorn bushes from the sides of a combe below Butser Hill and rolling them down to the valley, over rabbit holes in the damp grass.  I drew this in situ over lunch and coloured it at home, hoping to reflect the colours of the trees the other side of the A3.

Scrub-bashing on Butser Hill.

A few weeks earlier I wandered across London's Primrose Hill, into Camden and to the Cecil Sharp House, home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.  I have been in there once, a long time ago.  It's smart and slightly grave behind the rapidly thinning plane and birch.  It's good to get out and draw before breakfast - well, sometimes.

One of North London's mysterious gems, the Cecil Sharp House.

Here's to next year's drawing.  I think sketchbooks should be on my Christmas list.