| Sketches
Succesful sketching is an automatic process. One becomes so absorbed in the business of observation that the pencil almost works on it's own. As the subject moves and busies itself with feeding, preening or resting I become absorbed with the view through my telescope and the images that result can be as fresh to me in some cases,as to anyone else.
Field sketches are the most personal of all diaries, and I guard them quite jealously. To browse through the battered pages of a sketch book can transport me back in place and time. Perhaps to a windswept East Anglian Marsh, busy with Teal and piping waders, or my own favourite fell, watching Stonechats while the first Cuckoo of the season calls from a stone wall, or even back to a thornveld in southern Africa, hot,dusty and echoing with the calls of Blacksmith Plovers and Francolins. All very precious memories.
However, such has been the interest in this more informal work that in recent years I have taken to the field with the sole intention of producing sketch work for sale.
I also have a fondness for making more detailed studies of my subjects, taking field sketches back to the studio and reworking them in a more finished manner. These too, I am pleased to say have become very popular.
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