Anglesey - Sketching the Sky, Sand and Sea

Things have been quite busy lately, so John and I really enjoyed the chance of a lovely weekend away recently. 

I have brothers who are twins and it was their 50th birthday. We are all always busy and so don't get to spend time as often as we should, so we rented a house on the isle of Anglesey for a long weekend.

We were very lucky with the weather. It was FREEZING but, despite being Wales, it was dry and the sun came out for us, at least for a little while, each day.

It was all very laid back: getting wrapped up like Eskimos then mooching around various bays and beaches, looking at the sea birds, collecting shells, taking photos, then warming up in cafes or pubs. 

As you can see, I took my sketchbook. I love drawing the big outdoors and those huge skies reflected in the pools of sea left between the sand-banks was perfect. I was lucky that the view from the house was fantastic, so I could paint and draw from the comfort of the kitchen:

But I did also take a mini-sketchbook out onto the walks and drew on the beach:

It was a bit tricky standing up in the middle of nowhere, holding onto my various pencils and my book and my waterbrush, trying to balance an open pencil case in my coat pocket... I kept dropping things and getting in a right muddle!

Worth it though. Although I can sometimes get grumpy when I am drawing-in-adversity, I still really enjoy the immediacy of it. If you're freezing to death and your friends are fast disappearing into the distance, you can't mess about and so generally do your best, most intuitive work.