This morning, the first one of astronomical autumn, I felt the need to draw things autumnal. What better than oak leaves and acorns, mushrooms and pumpkins and a smattering of berries.

This wasn’t quite what I expected to flow out of my pen. Although the elements are stylised, there’s also a lot of contour line work and stippling to bring some volume and texture to the design. It’s a bit like an etching, lino cut or woodcut. A bit.

I can see where I started adding precise contour lines, but then they became much more expressive.

I’ve just added a coloured background to my drawing for now. I’m not sure about how to add colour yet. Do I risk messing it up by using traditional media? Or do I play safe and add colour digitally? At the moment, I don’t know. But there’s no rush. The image is scanned in and saved safely on my hard drive.

All I will say, for now, is that I really enjoyed drawing this. And I quite like it, even when considering the yeuchier areas of stippling.