A little budding artist joined me on my walk today. As we wandered across the fields and spotted little things along the way, I was then asked, ‘ Are we going to draw now?’ Eager to start, we found a spot on the trunk of a fallen ash tree. ‘What shall we draw?’ he said. How about the trees and the stream…

He asked more. ‘Why did the tree fall?’ It fell in a storm, the wind blew it over…

I managed a quick sketch, which I didn’t get to finish, but for the few moments where we were both focused on drawing, it was a lovely moment. We then went into pooh-sticks racing and making little boats to float down the stream, all made from pieces of bark we found on the ground, and sails from last years oak leaves attached with little twigs.

We listened to the birds calling and recorded the sound on my mobile phone. Isn’t technology amazing allowing us to capture the sounds around us. Maybe next time we can have a go at drawing sound.

The ash tree became a focus as a twig with the black buds came into view. We learnt it’s name and how to recognise them again. The twigs are like fingers and at the end the black buds look like dirty finger nails (my nephew liked that!) Catkins from the hazel tree looked like lambs tails. He thought that one was funny.

The adventure continued along the hedge and through a gate, where we found a pool. Let’s look for frogs spawn, he had been learning about it at school.  We will go back and watch them develop.

Which way now on this adventure of ours..?

Instagram: @thewalkingsketchbook