Sketching in Adversity.

Look at this beautiful cold blue sky !

It might have been sunny with a clear blue sky but it was cold and the wind was blowing a gale. I had all my drawing kit, pens, coloured pencils, my best sharpener and a newish sketchbook.

But there was no way I was going to hunker down for a long session.

I tried getting out of the wind, but it was swirling around and much as I wanted to record this abandoned boat I couldn't hold my pen for too long without loosing the feeling in my fingers.

The boat had A NOTICE OF CONFISCATION on it. It had been blown up on the marshes during the great storm surge of December 2013 at Blakeney and no one had come to claim it.

Mary Kemp. Sketch of Boat.

So I decided to draw this sketch really quickly using the continuous line technique. This involves putting your pen on the paper and not taking it off until you've finished the drawing. It can lead to a very interesting connected drawing. It can also lead to wild inaccuracies of proportions, but it forces you to concentrate the mind and feel round shapes in a way that other methods of drawing don't.

This sketch took about ten minutes, the rest of the time I took a few photos and just felt the air and looked at the huge sky and walked amongst the marsh vegetation.

Now I think I've got a cold.