Art Before Breakfast or sketching at dawn

I had recently purchased the book Art before breakfast, bye Danny Gregory, and I decided to bring the book and a pencil sketch kit with me to Ireland.  I found the exercises in the book a great way to kick start my days.  

I had not done any contour or negative space sketches in a very long time.  Doing these exercises again helped me improve my sketching.  I reminded me to spend more time looking at my subjects and less time looking at my sketch pad.  It also used some of the exercises to practice sketching while using binoculars, which proved to be very useful during this trip.

The morning exercises warmed me up and got me ready to head out into the county side and sketch.  Below are just the first four days of exercises to give you an idea of what I did: