Impressions of "Winter on Texel"

Last week we had booked a nice hotel on our largest Wadden Island, Texel for a few days vacation. Because hotel rooms are not meant to be transformed into a painting studio, I only packed my drawing materials.
The weather turned out to be very very cold, so we did not walk outdoors as much as we usually do when on vacation.
This scene is very close to the hotel, we only had to walk over the dunes to find the North Sea coast. Sunset was to be in an hour but it was too cold, the wind was too strong to wait for it. I made some reference pictures and later in the evening I tried a graphite pencil drawing. I am not unhappy with the result - for a first try.

The second day of our vacation was still very cold with a very strong wind from the East. As we were at the western coast of the island, walking in the dunes, it was possible to make a walk of about 7 km. We did not stop long to make pictures and did not stop at all to eat our lunch (we ate that in the car, after the walk) and returned to the hotel early in the afternoon. 
This is from memory, as it was too cold to take off my gloves to hold the camera at this point. The dunes of "De Muy" - a bird protection area - were looking very unforgiving, possibly because of the winter season. I used my Tinted Charcoal pencils here on watercolour paper, as an experiment. 

The third day of our vacation we went looking for the dry sandbanks of the Wadden Sea. The most northern part of Texel is where we had to be to have a chance to see what I wanted to see. We were warned not to go walking on the dry sand because at that point it is quicksand and very dangerous. The "wad" was covered with a layer of ice,but we did see some sandbanks. Sheltered by the dunes and dykes I made some reference pictures at different places close by the lighthouse of Texel, where we had access to the shoreline.
We returned to the warmth of the hotel early in the afternoon again and I made a second graphite drawing.

These three drawings were meant to become accustomed to my pencils and to explore the possibilities they give me. 

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