I did my first weekend class for my Diploma course last weekend - Shades of Grey with Robert Franken. It was about charcoal drawing. We had big sheets of brown paper and worked from life in the morning, with other exercises in the afternoon.

The first afternoon exercise was drawing found objects. I did a leaf and twig as shown after the break.

Acrylic

Continuing the exploration of acrylic paints, I did the painting shown below of the hill across the valley from my house. This one went a lot better than the last one. It's on a new canvas, rather than recycled like the previous. The paint seemed to flow onto the canvas much more easily, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of blending.