I have in my sketch book a series of drawings of the metal birds my sister bought me for Christmas. I’d drawn them several times for different angles and began to get a feel of the shapes so that these rather than detail and gesture instead of tinkered lines began to predominate. One stood out (thank you, tutor) and I was prompted to try taking that kind of looseness into a larger frame. This is it; prismatic pencil on sugar paper, folded and inserted into an A5 sketchbook.

Today I used the same sugar paper in an A4 sketchbook and began with a white oil crayon which wasn’t particularly satisfying. Biro helped draw out some detail but couldn’t rectify the legs and feet and that freed me up to ‘ruin’ it by dabbing diluted water colour (blue and white) onto the shapes. Sometimes, abandoning a ‘darling’ (which this wasn’t, exactly) and throwing out any thoughts of getting it ‘right’ can be quite illuminating.

If I could lose those legs I’d be quite happy with this because I think there is enough shape here to unequivocally suggest bird. And the texture that arose from the resistance of the oil crayon I find really very interesting. It looks a little bit batik-ish to me; an idea to hold onto.

Next, on pink paper, I used my finger to dab wet watercolour paint into rough shapes. Then I added a few indicative biro lines.

Too much biro on the middle bird, I think, maybe not quite enough to show the beak of the left hand image. And the one on the right is still wet!

I’ll come back to these, especially the one just above, to see what can be done.

Hm, well – better stop fiddling now!