Sketching materials often cause me a dilemma. Like many sketchers I run the risk of paralysis from too much choice. When I made my trip to Brisbane last week I decided on one sketchbook – a grey-tone Strathmore and a limited selection of pens/pencils. My main pencils were Koh-i-noor Magic pencils, so I couldn’t ‘control’ to any extent  the colours that came out. I didn’t know whether I could do it! Indeed I did resort to one digital drawing.

Brisbane River Bridges, digital drawing on PS Touch app (for Android)

Despite this small detour I did get back on track.This sketch uses only coloured pencil and white chalk. I used several types of the Magic pencils: Original, Fire and America.

Late afternoon sun on the Storey Bridge Brisbane, coloured pencil, white chalk, 20 January 2016

The next day we took our sketch books up to the Roma St Parklands where the twisting shapes of the Moreton Bay figs captured my attention.

Fig tree, Roma Street Parklands, white chalk, graphite and coloured pencil, 21 January 2016

Back home I realised that I hadn’t picked up a pencil in days so I grabbed what was to hand, a green Artline fibre pen and my black ink pen and got down to it.

Backyard, green fine line pen and ink, 29 January 2016

It can be a challenge just getting past that ‘perfection’ monkey, but it’s always worth getting out and just drawing.