Winter is a grim time where I live: cold without snow, damp without rain, and cyclopean buildings looming out of the smog that settles over the city. It's a time to draw the curtains, wear a mask when you do go outside, and imagine you are literally anywhere else.

This class came at exactly the right time, as thinking about a winter sketchbook helped me focus away from the grim environs of the macro (and they are unremittingly grim) to micro details: the round-bodied Bulbuls hopping through the winter trees and the autumn leaves and The Ginkgo trees were turning yellow, an annual event that only lasts a few weeks before the next rain or wind storm strips the trees bare.

I collected some samples and drew them in my personal sketchbook, then made them a bit bigger to explore their shape and mark-making.

I was a bit nervous when my wife got home (nothing in this town is as cliché as painting the Ginkgo leaves) but she liked them so much that she asked me to paint them for her. So no the plan is to take a class on painting leaves so that I can do them justice!