Make soup on a Thursday. It’s the day when the stuff in the fridge might be past its sell by date but will cook up quite nicely as a soup. Don’t expect it to taste the same every time. In fact there are times when if you could replicate the recipe you would because it tasted so good, but you’ll have forgotten what was in the fridge.

I’m back at the landscape front fighting the battle to get some drawings finished. I went through the phase of really big drawings and some have been put in the recycling bin and others are at a stage where they may well get some extra attention. Expect a dust cloud of pastels in this area. What’s the recipe? I have no idea really but I have the ingredients in my head.

I’ve pinned up a few of them on my old pin board so that they can stare at me looking for attention. Here they are

From the top left:
Trees and walls in Derbyshire. This is actually a black and white print coloured in pastel and it has a join on the skyline so that I could do the sky on a different piece of paper. The plan for this one is to do it again… sometime.

The shed on its right is an original black and white done during lockdown and is a shed over in the Shurdington area of Cheltenham. I did the drawing direct onto a semi gloss paper so pastels will not work on it, but I quite like it as it is. I might try another version of this sometime.

Top right is Derbyshire again from about 5 years ago! I’d say this recipe has worked. Its on uncoated paper drawn directly with Indian ink, plus grey pastels.

Middle left: Black and white drawing of a style from the South Downs Way. From about 3 or 4 years ago. We did a bit of walking around the area. I had a go at a large version of this recently and it started to look like a rather cheap chocolate box cover. It’s gone into the recycling bin. I might leave this one alone for a while. Soup gone wrong.

The big colour one in the middle right. One of my recent very big drawings. It’s looking ok but might be in need of a little extra cooking. I’ll leave it to mature for a while and then come back to it. Staring at it helps.

Bottom left, another Derbyshire drawing, this one a simple dry stone wall. This is another that’s done on a semi gloss paper so if I want to do a colour one then it will be re cooked.

The image of the boat is a black and white print, coloured in pastel. It has a patch glued on the sky area for a new sky! Not sure if I’ll finish it or do it again. There was a factory chimney in the original now obliterated by the patch. I may well restore that too.

Lastly, bottom right is a drawing form a couple of so years ago of the River Coln, not far from the Roman Villa at Chedworth. I’d like to think that it might have looked like that in Roman days, different trees but same river. I’ve drawn this image a few times and no doubt might have another go at it, but will leave this one alone, it’s cooked enough for the time being.