Robin Hood's Bay in the Frost

Yes, I know it's very decadent, having only 2 minutes ago got back from our big adventure in Kerala, but John was desperate to get off to the seaside for the weekend and I thought, well... why not?

I'm so glad I did, as the weather turned out to be perfect: crisp and frosty but clear and mostly sunny. We went for a walk along the cliffs and the beach for 3 days running. 

Despite it being mid January and the ground being frozen solid, there was almost no wind, so it was warm enough for me to sit and sketch. These were all done using the Inktense pencils from Derwent. I'm still learning how to get the best from them, but I feel I've really started to turn the corner now and mastering a new medium makes the sketching so much more interesting.

Robin Hood's Bay is a bit special to us: it's the first place John and I ever went away together, it's the place we got engaged and where we spent the first night of our honeymoon. We were there for our wedding anniversary last summer, when we discovered Friday folk night in the upstairs room at Ye Dolphin, so we went back this time and had another lovely evening.

Steve and John were the mainstay and kept us entertained until almost midnight. They were a great double-act, singing mostly funny songs, to the accompaniment of a banjo, violin and mouth-organ.  Thanks guys - fabulous stuff.

I love to draw to music and of course love to draw people, so spent the whole evening sketching away and nobody seemed to mind at all. It was like a one-man SketchJam!

This is Jeff below, who runs the show, as well as singing a few songs himself. He remembered me drawing at the club before, because after that previous visit, I let him use a little painting I did of the outside of the pub, to illustrate the cover of the folk club's newsletter. 

This lady didn't sing, but must be a regular, as I remembered her from the summer too:

We had only started off with the idea of a B&B on that Friday night, but the weather was so wonderful we stayed Saturday night too. But then we discovered that our B&B ran a '3 nights for the price of 2' deal during off-season, so it seemed wicked not to take advantage of it...