St. Monans and St. Davids
The short February break has been a long time coming. The world changes constantly and nowhere is this more evident than on the Fife Coast.
We went up to St. Monans today and spent a good while playing on the beach, watching the birds and basking, like the cormorants, in the early spring sunshine. A drone pilot was out catching images of the castle and kirk but there were not hordes of half-term Hoorays. We thought they might be along the coast a bit, near Anstruther. I took pencils and a sketchbook, determined to break my habit of carrying art materials everywhere I go and never whipping them out.
Whip them out I did, indeed, and sketched en plein air from a place on the shore usually under water. I took the reference photo not so much as to check my rendering skills as to try to render in two mediums what it felt like to be there, on the beach, with the sound of birds and gentle waves in our ears.
Yesterday, we were out at a beach nearer to home, just to catch the mist over the bridges. I sketched it a couple of times, and grabbed a photo. I like the photo more, I think.
