The Thing

Sketch Week: Day 4
I try to walk most days and have only missed two since Christmas. Yesterday it was dull with misty drizzle. The sweet woodsmoke from the houses lay heavy in the lanes. In these dark afternoons the woods smell warm, peaty and mossy. It is somehow comforting. 

Colours are subdued and monochrome, so the old white spiral tree protectors shine out. They are mostly split now as the trees have expanded.  Some blow about in the undergrowth or like this one have been assimilated into the tree structure. In this case two trunks have grown very close together trapping the protector as it split. I have a few pieces of these curled shapes, they are lovely to draw. 

A trick of perspective gave this one a wan face, a poor trapped thing, its grasping arms never again to meet, as the tree relentlessly expands.

A5 sketchbook