Ice skating at Canary Wharf

Here's my warm-up drawing

I belong to an informal sketching group called Art in the Park and we visited the ice rink at Canary Wharf for our first outing of 2016. This is a temporary structure and we sheltered in the pop-up pub on site called the Tasting Room.

It always takes me a while to settle into drawing so I began with a pencil view of the bar. Then I turned my attention to the outside and the skaters circling the rink. I admired their collective courage - their expertise ranged from terrified novice to fearlessly competent. I quite envied them and briefly considered joining in but decided I was just avoiding trying to sketch the skaters.

First attempt at skaters

Second attempt - thought it was getting a bit repetitive

My fellow artists

Then I thought it might be fun to try drawing without looking at the paper so I tried this with my fellow artists and liked the result. I found it difficult to only look at the subject so compromised by looking at the paper as little as possible. I really liked the way this was going so did one last drawing of a table and chairs using the same approach.

I was happy with the way this drawing turned out and if felt good to take a chance and risk losing control of the final product so while I may not have ventured onto the ice I did step out of my usual drawing 'comfort zone' and reaped some rewards in the process.