The forecast today was for gusty south-westerlies, strengthening and then bringing rain. These winds drag Antarctic cold onto the exposed places of the East Coast. I dug out my stepson's jacket, packed the thermos, and headed out to Sponge Bay. 

As usual, turning onto the Sponge Bay road invited a shift into mindfulness. No paradise ducks on the blue container. I always look for them now. Black and white cows grazing the hills, the crooked winding of a fence-line, and the grey sky ahead. Just before I turned the car into the carpark I noticed a group of magpies, seven of them, spread out but within a few square metres of each other. I can't remember seeing them in such a group before - one or two, certainly, but never a group.

My friend was there ahead of me, the hatchback of her car open, her heavy oilskin coat on already, pulling on her warm hat. We agreed it was freezing. We walked over to the side of the bay looking back towards Gisborne. As we stepped onto the grass I noticed a male paradise duck, sitting very still, a few metres away. It looked as if it had been carved out of wood and painted, a decoy rather than the real thing.

It's rare, in my experience, to see a paradise duck on its own. They are usually in pairs - male and female - or in very large flocks. We tried to skirt around it so as not to disturb it, but it stood up fairly quickly. Its right leg was damaged. A ball of sadness turned over in my body. Was this why it was alone? We kept on walking. It settled back down on the grass.

Despite the greyness over the bay, there were flickers of sunlight on the hills that form the sides of the basin surrounding Gisborne city. Tuamotu Island looked dark.

I decided to sit in the car to sketch. It was just too cold to sit outside. As you can see from the photograph above, Mahia Peninsula was not visible, nor was the continuation of hills that can usually be seen meeting the sea along the coast south of Young Nick's Head. We were expecting rain any minute.

As I walked back, the duck lifted itself into the sky, its hurt leg dangling beneath it. 

South-westerlies always bring rain. Ahead of the rain, the sky was heavily overcast. There were no shadows on the Sponge Bay headland. The contrast between sky, headland and sea was reduced to a narrow range of tones. I did three thumbnails - the first the geometric shapes, the second to play with the composition and the third to explore the tones.

The dotted lines show the thumbnail divided into a 'rule of thirds' grid. This grid can be used to guide the distribution of objects along its lines. For example, in the photograph above, I have placed the horizon on the lower horizontal line, and in the sketch below, I have done the same. The intersections can be used to place points of interest. In the photograph I have placed Tuamotu Island on the intersection, and in the sketch, the end of the headland on the same intersection. I think our brains look for patterns. If we place the horizon line halfway up the page, then our brain cuts the scene in two. This is not a restful thing to look at. The shapes interact with the frame which encloses them.

I wanted this sketch to be about the sky which was constantly changing in the high wind. The light on the sea was also constantly changing, with lines of brightness shooting across it.

When my friend sat in my car to have her cuppa with me, she suggested we drive a little further north of Sponge Bay for our next sketching trip, just for a change. So for now, we say goodbye to Sponge Bay.

Just before I turned into the road that goes down to Sponge Bay this morning, I was thinking about the Mindfulness Workshop I went to last Friday. The workshop was run by Tim Mapel from Hawkes Bay. Mindfulness is the practice of being in the moment, rather than thinking about things that have happened in the past or imagining things that might happen in the future. I realised that when I am sketching or painting, I am in the moment for the most part - totally focused on the work at hand. There is something refreshing about doing this - something restful. 

The moment I turned the corner onto Sponge Bay Road, I felt my attention start to focus on what I was seeing. I looked to see if the paradise ducks were sitting on the blue container, but they weren't there. There were large flocks of little chaffinches swirling over the road a few weeks back, but there were only magpies on the road today. They each flew off just at the moment my car would have run them over.

The wind was very strong - a westerly, tending north-westerly. I knew I wouldn't be sitting out on my deckchair to sketch. I took the camera and climbed up the hill behind the carpark to take some pictures.  I had to hang onto the tussock grass at one stage as the wind gusts threatened to lift me off the hill. This photo shows the carpark and the bay. 

I sat in the car to sketch. Because the year is turning towards summer, the light on the tops of the headland in the distance are just touched with sunlight. It will be interesting to see the difference in the light on this headland as the longest day (21st December) comes around. 

I started with thumbnails - the first two to play with composition, and the last the tones:

Unlike last week, I worked my own way - outlining the sketch (this time on brown Canson Mi Tientes) with a neutral raw umber colour. I began with the clouds and sky, then sketched in the headland, and finally the sea. I wish I could sketch with my sunglasses on as they are slightly orange tinted, and polaroid - the colours are so much more intense when I look through them. But they distort the colours of the pastel sticks, so I would have to put them on and take them off a hundred times. 

Here's the finished sketch:

On the way home, I stopped at my friend John Darkin's for a cuppa and a look at his blog. I love his writing - he writes for the Guardian Weekly, and also for our local paper, the Gisborne Herald. He's funny, and very clever. 

Before I went out to Sponge Bay this morning, I was reading an article in The Pastel Journal written by Richard McKinley about plein air painting - a field guide. He suggested doing three thumbnails before beginning sketching - the first a composition, the second an exploration of tones, and the third a notan sketch. I hadn't tried a notan sketch before, so thought I might do this. Notan is a Japanese word which means "value as design". A notan sketch is done in black and white only which helps you see your composition as an abstract. Tones lighter than the mid-point are left white, and tones darker done in black.
Here is a photo of the bay this morning, looking towards Tuamotu Island and beyond it Young Nick's Head:

I decided to bring my focus in to the bottom of the near cliff and try to capture the waves. Here are the thumbnails I did this morning. I didn't have a black pencil, so used dark blue for the notan thumbnail.

Richard McKinley also suggested beginning the sketch itself with blocks of broad colours which you smear into the page. This forms an underpainting. The idea is to then add details and highlights. I tried this, but didn't like it very much - for one thing the underpainting covered the paper, and I like to leave some showing. It was also a bit messy! I had pastel all over my hands. It didn't matter, of course, because it was such a joy just being there.

There was a strong north-westerly wind making flying icing-sugar of the foam of the breakers.

My friend and I sat and had our hot drinks together, warming up in the car, out of the wind. We watched the shadows of the clouds race across the bay. She said to me "how on earth are we supposed to capture that?!"  

When I woke up this morning, there was what my old friend Snow would call a mackerel sky. He reckons when you see a sky like this, rain is coming. At 2pm we had a thunder storm with hail rattling on the roof.

There was a northerly wind today with an ear-biting snap. It was exactly low tide when I arrived at Sponge Bay at 8.25am. 

 I carefully navigated the many wooden steps down to the beach. Young Nick's Head was beaming in the background, the water pooled on the sand flashing back the sky, and Tuamotu Island sat on the mid-point of the tonal range. There was purple everywhere - in the clouds, the sea, the land and the sand. 

What caught my eye was the triangle formed by the three logs  embedded in the sand in the foreground:
  

With so much purple, I decided to use pastel paper with a  pale mauve tint. But first, the thumbnails. Three this time – the first to sketch the possible composition, the second exploring the tonal range, and the third to look at the repeating shapes – so many triangles! 

The sketch didn't go well! I was captured by the complexity of the cliffs and this hijacked my intention to foreground the foreground. I didn't care though, because it is all learning. And the sheer pleasure of being there, my usual focus on academic or practice matters replaced by, what Joseph Campbell called, being in my bliss.

Sitting back up in my car in the car park, I drank red date tea, and my friend drank her coffee. We watched the sun blow in from behind the clouds to polish the jags of the far headland and flicker in the water.

As I turned into the road that leads down to Sponge Bay this morning I saw a pair of paradise ducks sitting on top of a blue shipping container. The dark orange of the female’s body popped against the periwinkle blue of the container. Down at the bay my attention was immediately caught by the clouds on the horizon, and my hands itched to flick over the page with my juicy, soft Windsor white pastel to trace the lines of their contours. The more I looked at them, the more colours I could see – different blues, pink, yellow, white. I can’t remember the last time I saw blue shadows on clouds – they’re usually more grey. I was so keen to get going I didn't bother with thumbnails. While I sat there and sketched, I saw a large white bird coming towards the bay from a great distance. It was bright white against the dark teal sea. Finally it came to rest on the waves in the bay. I thought it might be a gannet, but as it came closer I saw it was a large adult black-backed gull. Today the sketch seemed to draw itself. When I had almost finished I put a single white line just above the horizon, and used a blue pastel pencil to provide a little more definition to the shadow side of the clouds. Then I sat with my friend, with my feet up on the railing drinking a cup of red date tea. My friend JieYu says the tea is good for my circulation.

Today I was sketching the distant hills around the big bay that Gisborne sits beside - visible from the western end of Sponge Bay. As usual, I started with a couple of thumbnails:

I had trouble with the hills for some reason. I thought I would just get on with the sketch, see if I could find a way forward. I was using pastel chalks, as usual, and sketching on Canson Mi Tientes paper. It was still difficult to get the hills in the right proportion. I had a bit of headland in the foreground - it was low tide and there was a causeway of rocks visible going out to Tuamotu Island which sits in the bay. I started by making the headland too big and then didn't have room for the mountains. Then I made the mountains too long, then too short! I rubbed them out four times before finally getting something I was reasonably happy with. I felt very relaxed about this though, because I think it's good for my brain to be thinking about objects in relation to other objects, and the discipline of trying to represent them in some way. Overhead there were skylarks singing their hearts out, and the occasional paradise ducks shooting across the airspace.

Back to the western side of the bay today. The first thing I did was take a couple of photos because I couldn't decide what to sketch. The rectangle of the camera's screen gives instant framing options. Clear skies, and a bit of a surf break at the tip of Tuamotu Island. I did a couple of quick thumbnails to explore composition and tone:

 I used the drawing pen to outline the hills and the toe of Tuamotu Island: