Today I thought I'd try a fast sketching exercise we used to do at art school. It forces you to switch off from whatever else is running through your mind and focus solely on your drawing. This was a much needed break after yesterday's 'thinky, thinky' session. This warm up also greatly improves your hand eye co-ordination, as you have to react quickly. There's no time for hesitation, making you more decisive about where you put your lines and marks. 

I chose willow charcoal to work with for this and began by pulling out four sheets of A2 cartridge paper and taped the first one to a board on my easel. For this first drawing (above), I set the timer on my phone for 10 minutes and recorded as much information as I could until the alarm went off. I worked quickly and if I made a mistake I just kept going. 

I then moved onto the second sheet of paper and reset my timer for 2 minutes. My aim was to try and record the same amount of information as I did in the 10 minutes sketch. It was difficult but fun. I found the more I did, the easier it became and I can see this development in the drawings as they go on. I repeated the 2 minute timer for the third and fourth drawings. 

It felt really liberating and and there's an energy about these quick sketches that I believe wouldn't exist if I had taken any longer over them. 

Second drawing

Third drawing

Fourth drawing