Life sketch 1

It must be a year or so ago that my friend Katie Bogbumper Fuller bought me an A6 sketching pad from The Works. It has been sitting around gathering rust since, as has my sketching. In fact my sketching has been becoming rustier and rustier for more than 25 years.
When I was a young 'un I was always drawing this that and the other, all the time, and fancied myself as a bit of a good drawist. Then we started doing Art as a school subject, which basically was like being in an uncontrolled playground, where play was not encouraged and art was the last thing on the pupils' minds. They were much more interested in nattering and finding new ways to laugh at the teacher's cleft palette, or the other teacher's turkey-neck. Art was also the last thing on the teachers' minds and the whole class was intensely dull.
Worse still, it was examined at the end of the year. And there I was, around about the top of virtually every subject (if I say so myself, and I do), being told that in the one subject, Art, in which I rather fancied myself, I was 29th in the class with a pitiful mark of 33%.
Result: I more or less gave up drawing, painting and doing anything. Thanks very much Mr Turkey-neck Goffey and Miss Shepherd for killing off creativity and artistic ambitions. You represent the worst type of teacher, the kind that destroys rather than nurtures.
God, this is starting to sound like one of those wordy Blogs that clog the Internet with teenage angst and self-pity. What I really want to say is, it is about time I started drawing again. My daughter Jasmine is my inspiration, as she is constantly creating sculptures, collages, arrangements, paintings and drawings, all day every day. She says (at the age of 6), that she always does best int he subjects she likes the best. So, for me, I figure, the best way to proceed is to practise from life and what I really want to practise on is birds (and such like).
So, true to the spirit of blogging, I'm going to bare my soul and plot my progress within this site. Like a good birder, I'm going to take the pad out whenever I go birding (alongside the digiscoping kit, of course). The above is from my first efforts on Sunday (25.9.05), using the trusty A6, and is supposed to be of Golden Plovers, plus a Lapwing. Let's hope there are some major improvements, coming...