Capturing Winter

It’s currently -6 here in the UK, I’m wearing a hat in the studio and collecting together some images that say ‘winter’ to me. Because if I don’t do it now, spring will spring and I’ll be filling pages with blossom and flowers and colour.

I snapped a photo of China Town whilst whizzing through one evening, and came back to it for this sketch. I wanted to focus on the contrast between the light of the lanterns and the darkness otherwise. I’m sometimes a bit apprehensive about too much darkness on a page, but wanted to see what would happen.

And, continuing with a theme here, more darkness. Due to a logistical issues, I ended up walking home from the airport one very cold, dark evening. There wasn’t much to see, but this little vignette of the stream with the moonlight bouncing off it and some industrial lights in the background caught my eye and I wanted to try and recreate it. I like how the colour of the sky spread — even if it is just light pollution!

My children and I ventured to the Tower of London on a snowy day! I told them, numerous times, that this was an unusual and auspicious occasion and they might never see such things again. They didn’t care much about any of that, but we did all enjoy the raven footprints in the snow. I’m pleased with the limited palette here, which I feel did capture the chilliness of the day.

This was a very cold, wet visit to Mottesfont, in Hampshire. Wading through floods not sketched, but the colours here were perfect — blue sky, green (sodden) fields and the copper of the leaves. All ready for those spring colours…

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