After whinging about the placement of objects in the last strip, this is one where everything went right. I was essentially drawing an abstracted version of the view outside my study window, looking over the St Helen’s estate and St Helen’s wood up to the top of The Ridge. Rather than cut and paste the drawing three times, something I only do when really pressed for time, I used tracing paper after pencilling the backdrop the first time and then transferred the scene to the other two frames using a graphite sheet. Then I inked in each frame separately. This ensures the backdrops look the same as each other but there are variations in the inking in each one, which stops the strip looking mechanical. I draw with a rather wobbly line so when they get repeated over and over again in one strip it can look a bit obvious.

The colouring is just right as well, mainly because I was colouring from life. I’m letting the snow melt as well, ready for the next round of strips.