Training Session

Right, I am off training, keeping myself artistically fit.  It is a very cold winter afternoon.  The wind is howling and it will be dark soon.  I have dashed out to get my "fix" of the sea.  First of all scramble to the top of the cliff, it is a great view from there but when I get there it is way too windy to attempt to draw.  I struggle with my back pack and find my little camera, snap a few pictures of the surf.  It looks and sounds great from up here but the pictures don't do it justice.  So I call the dog, voice lost on the wind, she sees me flapping about and follows me back down to the beach.
It is high tide so there is no beach but I find a space to sit, out of the wind, tucked in between some rocks.  Now I wait and watch.  Trying to see, trying not to assume I concentrate on looking.  After doing this staring thing for a while I feel as if I have waves in my head, I am at one with the wave and have become flotsam and jetsum!  So suitably zenned up I get out my scraps of cardboard and start to draw.
I am using big pens and bits of cardboard box, sometimes I believe it is necessary to just look and draw, not for any other reason than to train.  Yes, that's it, training.  Like a runner or a swimmer would train hard all the time to keep fit, to try to be better. This is what an artist must do.  Out early or after work, fit it in... this is my training.
So that I keep on my toes and don't get fooled into doing anything other than looking and drawing I try using other materials, don't get precious about paper, this isn't for sale, not even to show anyone (except I have just shown you)  
Draw on anything, make your hand do what you want it to do, look more at what you see and less at your drawing, soak it up and breathe it in.  This is why making art is so good for you.  How can you worry about anything when you have to become so absorbed in your subject?

After a while I am too cold and need to head home where I will try to get some of the waves out of my head and into a painting.