Early Morning Companions

Not the greatest of sketches I know, but in my defense I don't think it's too bad for 6am in the morning!

I venture out at around this time every morning with the infamous Poppy Cat. I like to perch on a wall while Poppy mooches about & drink in the solitude; it is a form of meditation listening to the birdsong. I sit in silence & once my stillness renders me invisible to them, the birds slowly return to the feeders. The brave robins are usually first, followed by the odd greenfinch & Great Tit, then the rest.

Every morning the same blackbird returns to the very same branch of a particular Ash tree. His song is so loud & familiar; the mornings just wouldn’t be the same without him. So this particular morning I found myself compelled to capture this little fellow in a sketch!

My sketchbook is quite a personal diary of sorts, which I know sounds incredibly ‘precious’. But you see my sketching happens in a little world of isolation, where I feel really happy just being in that woodland, edge of field, garden or lakeside. I’m lost in my own thoughts & nobody sees me, well hardly anyone. I feel anonymous & free. My sketchbook documents my travels and finds & at the time they are just for me.

My sketching is terminally scruffy, which is just how it is. I’ll never have the neatness of an illustrator or the sketching speed of others. I feel OK with that & it doesn’t bother me at the time. When it comes to showing them to other people, however, I feel incredibly self-conscious & rather loathed to expose my lack of sketching finesse in that way.

So in order to help myself along in the right direction I’m sharing this awful bit of sketching. You can see all the mistakes and rubbings out & no I cannot draw a blackbird mid song. Ah well, with a lot more practice at a more civilized hour who knows?