The river Gannel has created a narrow tidal flat between steep sided low hills. I came upon this from the side where a smaller spring joined the flow. I cycled as far as I could until my road was submerged, stopped there, looked down and drew the water as it flooded and retreated against the silt, grass and planks bordering the path.
I drew, as usual, in fountain pen and water, light strokes of conte crayon and then strengthened the shapes of the wavelets with brush pen and black ink (shown below). The heavy black ripples were a mistake, unbalancing the sketch. I wanted to highlight the posts and planks against both silt and water. Dissatisfied, I reworked the mud bringing in pinks and blues to supplement the ochre. I rebuilt the wavelets textured white acrylic ink and, when dry, rubbed in crayon, losing all but a few white reflections. It won’t bear further manipulation and the image is now too distant in my mind, so this (above) is how the sketch is finished.
kestrelart 
The top one has a much more ominous feel. I like them both. The lighter version does integrate everything more, but the unbalance in the first is what creates the menace I think. (K)
“ominous” is interesting. It makes me want to rework this or a piece based on it, first building textures in white ink, then rubbing conte crayon into the cracks in the paint.
That sounds good!
It’s so interesting to follow your process and to see how you abstract the imagery….
I like this from all ways up. I’m not sure what I’m looking at exactly, but I like the viewpoint, it’s movement and map like quality
Hi OA
Thanks. Any way up is ok with me. I was looking directly down at the scene at my feet, wood, grass, silt, sea. There is almost no perspective.