Cold and wet recently, but colour is coming back into the world now that Spring is here.

I was out early this morning and wanted to try and sketch a few figures from the car, as although it was dry, it is still cold. As might be expected, I had rather mixed results as of course none of these people stayed still for long. A few fumbled in their bags or looked at their phones, and one man looked impatiently at his watch, but even he moved off quite quickly. None of them turned out to be as detailed as I hoped they would be, and I had to give up on some. Neither were they all around at the same time. I will have to wait until Summer when people are more likely to stay chatting with each other for longer. By the time I got around to colour, people were long gone so were painted from memory, and sometimes I changed the colours on purpose.

A5 Moleskine portrait format sketchbook

More snow first thing this morning and for a while it was difficult to know how long it would last, but gradually the temperature nudged up enough to turn it into rain. At one point, driving along the road, the fields on one side were white while on the other they were green. Snow only remained on the distant fields.

I was hoping to go out somewhere and do some sketching this morning, but it was snowing , ( still is, but not as hard and it is not settling), and bitterly cold. Decided to stay in and paint some ‘tete-a-tete’ dwarf daffodils and friends. I expect the plants were just as glad to be inside today.

There may be some signs of Spring- crocuses beginning to come up – but it has turned cold again and next week is expected to be quite wintry

Spent an hour or so in Lower Slaughter making the most of a grey damp day until my hands started to get quite numb. Not quite Spring yet!.

Lemon Muffin, painted with no other reason than to cheer me up on a dull, wet day. Not that I actually need a reason to paint ! It also gave me an idea for a future project for the class, with a few more bits and bobs added. Funny how things can be resolved when you are not really thinking about them.

Most people find it hard to keep still for any length of time, especially if they don’t know someone wants them to. They are always moving their head and waving their hands around, probably without being aware they are doing so. But it does make it difficult if you are trying to sketch surreptitiously – luckily I spotted this person glued to his mobile phone, waiting for his next delivery job, which kept him in one position long enough for a quick entry in a pocket-size sketchbook.

I wasn’t expecting to do much sketching on my walk today, as it was much cloudier and windier than of late, and everything looked a bit dull. However, the wind blew the clouds along and a few patches of blue sky started to appear. The brief shaft of sunlight lit up the distant field to a bright yellow, providing a strong contrast with the trees and hedges still in shadow.

I spent this morning in prison.

It was a miserable muddy rain-soaked day and I wanted to make something positive of it, so I went to sketch the Old Prison in Northleach, or at least part of it, from the comfort of the car.

The prison was originally built in 1791 as a House of Correction to inspire better care and rehabilitation of prisoners. I have no idea whether it worked or not, but it closed its doors in 1860. These days it is a listed building and museum. Part of it is also a cafe, where one can sit with a coffee and cake and reflect upon the lives of its former guests.

It started out foggy this morning, but once it had been burned off, the low level of the sun really brought out the contrast of light and shadow, especially through the trees along the riverbank near Little Rissington. I was attracted by the light of the sky and its reflection in the water next to the darkest areas of the reflected trees, and then the cast shadows going from right to left through the water and onto the bank on the far left. This was painted in my 5×8 inch watercolour sketchbook which I am using a lot at the moment.