A living charcoal drawing

I do so love it when the snow turns our landscape into a giant charcoal drawing and this very recent photograph shows the same hillside that features in my charcoal drawing of the previous post. The scoured fields look just like the grainy texture of charcoal on rough watercolour paper.

Once I had some wonderful Winsor & Newton paper with a really crisp, rough surface that was perfect for this kind of thing but I think it is now discontinued.  Its  frustrating when a good material becomes  unobtainable, and it seems to happen a lot these days.  If you find a paper you especially like, its a good idea to investigate alternatives from the start so you are less dependent on the whims of the manufacturers.

This dry stone wall at Old Town (a hill top settlement above Hebden Bridge) had developed such an intriguing geometric pattern.

Even yesterday it was still possible to make snowballs up on the hills but finally the cold white stuff is disappearing fast.