The first sunny day in what seems like months and a golden opportunity to take the sketchbook out for a spin this afternoon. I haven’t done any sketches in about 6 weeks so, not for the first time, I felt a bit rusty. However, being out in the fresh air, the smell of the sea in my nostrils and the landscape bathed in warm Autumnal sunshine, was exhilarating.

The first sketch (above) was made at the end of Meols promenade in Wirral, and depicts a man sitting next to a boat on the slipway. Fortunately I decided not to draw the boat that originally caught my eye, as it was towed out of the sea shortly after starting work on the sketch. It’s pictured below.

A relaxing 20-minute stroll down the prom and another opportunity for a sketch (pictured below). This time I decided to sketch Paul Bearman’s sculpture outside the Lifeboat station in Hoylake. I chose to portray it from a distance, from the relative comfort of a park-type bench. A car parked in front of the sculpture at one point, which could have been troublesome, but otherwise seeing it from a distance allowed me to simplify what I saw and concentrate on its beautiful contours. Both of the drawings here were rendered in pen on around A5-sized paper.