I have lived in Nîmes for several years, long enough to have habitual routes and still be surprised by a doorway I have passed a hundred times. My drawing routine grew out of those interruptions. I would stop to look at a shape of light, try to remember it, and discover later that memory had made it far more elaborate.
Now I carry a small landscape sketchbook and four pencils in a cloth sleeve. The limited kit matters. If I bring too many materials, I spend the first ten minutes choosing them. Four pencils let me begin with a simple division between light, shade, a warm surface, and the dark line that holds the arrangement together.
I draw from public places where I can sit without obstructing anyone, and leave private courtyards to their owners. Sometimes that means an ordinary view from a bench rather than the composition I first imagined. The limitation usually helps. It asks me to find something worth seeing in the place that is actually available.
At home, I place the day’s sketch on a shelf and look at it the next morning. I do not correct every crooked line. I ask whether the page still carries the feeling that made me stop. If it does, I write a sentence underneath. If it does not, the sentence is a useful reminder of what I wanted to notice.