…and so it begins. The time has come to test out the two studio assistant’s patience and lets face it – my own with them. Making sure you have everything in your dog walking coat is essential and as each season changes so do the contents. Now we have to ensure we have a few extras for drawing. It’s hard to know what to bring as with holidays – I want to bring everything – all the colours! I have dug out the ruck sack, a range of paints – all the colours!, the pens the papers, the a4 pads, the a3 pads – well alot of stuff. Hmm. Perhaps a little ambitious. How many holidays have I been on and not used half the stuff I came with, but you know, I like to have a choice. Overwhelmed by my own ambition, I have to have a word with myself. Now think about it. I am embarking on a new project with the aim being daily painting out in the field – with the dogs. This is a training exercise. We need to treat it as such. Put the paints down. Pick the pen up and take one small sketchbook. Okay, okay. Let’s go!

I was given a really lovely little sketchbook by Taylor’s Mum for Christmas. It fits lovely and snugly in the pocket of my dog walking coat. So just a pen and the usual doggy accessories in the other pocket and just enough room to keep my hands warm when I need to as wearing gloves doesn’t really work for me when I am drawing. So cold today, but as soon as we got to the fields I stopped and did this little sketch. Just a few seconds. We kept stopping and starting only for a short while – quickly recording little views that I am drawn to. Everyone behaved well and didn’t disappear (we lost Jasper for over 2 hours on 7th January), so all good and a successful start.