today felt like spring – I walked up part of cakes lane to find the primroses

there was a chiffchaff singing

and patches of primroses revealed by the recent cutting back of the hedges and scrub lining the hedges

at the fish shop

I bought the first crab of the season

caught on the chalk reef off Weybourne

where the special habitat makes them exceptionally sweet

then they have to walk all the way to the Humber estuary to breed.

I worked in my shed studio, which due to the sunshine and mild weather was warm enough without any heating – drew this charcoal up to prepare for a painting.

I hope to make it as near abstract as this one, completed yesterday.

working from photos it’s very tempting to try for realism

but starting like this helped develop it a bit differently.

this one, painted on Monday is not so abstract but has different more mysterious qualities.

here’s the working environment in our Village Hall for the monday painting group. in a group there’s a different dynamic, and it’s easy to be influenced by an atmosphere where realism and painterliness compete with difficulty.

the photo today’s drawing comes from has an architectural quality, where the trees, bare of leaves but full of ivy, become towers with different shaped cone tops

or even strange figures semaphoring early spring signs.