A Quick Morning Sketch

I have a long list of things that need to be done around the house but I'm still recovering from our latest bout with COVID so I don't really have the energy for much. I've been sick for over a month at this point so this is now very much beyond old.  I feel like I've been sick with COVID every summer and every winter since the pandemic started!  And, with each bout, I'm down and feeling lousy for at least a month.  Breathing problems are the biggest complaint but losing two+ months each year is frustrating.

Our Christmas celebration with the grandchildren is this coming weekend after cancelling Christmas due to being sick last month so there really is a lot that needs to be accomplished around the house.  Actually, now that I'm thinking about what needs to be done, I have some cooking to do too.  Uggg...  I'll have to get started on that tomorrow.  

In the meantime, I took a little time this morning to do some sketching.  I haven't sketched anything in quite a while so I collected some art supplies and spent a little time this morning creating a small scene on a smallish sketching pad...

I'm always a bit of an overly harsh critic of my own work so what I'm going to say next comes as no surprise...  

Something about this sketch is looking a bit wonky to me but I'm not sure what it is at the moment.  Right now it is already obvious to me that it needs some much deeper shadows...  and I think some shapes are just too chiseled.  Overall, it is a bit flat.  It is time for a break and then I'll come back to it to make some small changes and add some depth.

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EDIT:  January 14, 2026 - After watching a basketball game this afternoon, I went back to this sketch in an attempt to figure out why I felt it was a bit wonky and flat.  After this little break for a basketball game and then viewing this sketch again, it was obvious to me that I needed to add more depth so that is what I did.  

The main thing that was bothering me was that the big tree in the foreground was looking flat...  two dimensional.  I had no branches sticking out toward the viewer and the tree trunk and branches weren't shaded enough.  I drew a bunch more leaves and made the branches denser to show that some of these leaves were on twigs pointing toward the viewer.  After adding more leaves and twigs, I darkened the right side of the trunk and the branches...  I used an eraser to add highlights to the left side of the trunk and these branches...  and added a bit of texture.  The tree in the foreground was looking better now.  Honestly, it is still a bit flat but it is now in an acceptable range since I started so dark and two dimensional.  

The next place that needed attention was I needed to add more depth to the mountains and trees in the background.  These should fade more and more into the distance.  I had already drawn a bit too heavy so I needed to darken what was closest.  

I think, overall, it is looking better now.  It is not ideal but I am comfortable leaving it like this.  Now I need to cut it out of the sketching pad and then spray it with fixative.  

I definitely went too heavy with the mid-tones at the beginning on this one.  In the future, I'll need to start much, much lighter and then darken mid-tones,  Not until the end will I add true black shadows.  There is only so much you can erase before you start to tear apart the paper so I need to be careful about being too heavy-handed in the beginning.

I already dug out the spray adhesive so I should probably take care of that now to keep it from smudging and smearing...