Here’s a close-up of the stones that interested me on the opposite side of the river. They supported my tree and were kept dry by it and the ferns and grasses. That meant that the stones themselves kept a blue-grey tonality that really worked among the greens and orangey-browns of the grasses hanging down.

Here’s me looking across the river having finished my oil pastel and soft pencil sketch which you can also find on this blog in previous posts.

Here you can see me drawing on site from my chosen motif of the tree teetering on the edge of the supporting wall.

Now you can see the tree in close-up with the charecteristic orangy lichen on the side of the tree itself. There’s twigs growing from cut-off parts of the tree that look almost like creatures themselves!

Here’s me on our drawing day at Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. We went on  a long walk to discover motifs. You can see the pastel drawing that came out of the day on a previous blog post It was a revelation to find so much colour in what is still essetially a Winter landscape. I loved the orangy lichen on the tree behind me in this photo. You can see this on the trees in the pastel I made as well.

Here is the soft pastel drawing in stages that I made today based on a sketch of some trees by the river that I found as a motif in Hebden Bridge at the weekend. There are colours in nature that you wouldn’t believe even before spring has properly arrived. I sat on the river bank and made a study which this was taken from and I will share with you as well. My friend said there she liked the pinks in the leaves even though they weren’t really there, but they were to me!