Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Back to work on my Thomas Gissing ‘Ferns of Wakefield’ article for a forthcoming ‘Dalesman’.
The ferns, horsetail and clubmoss on the right-hand page are by botanical illustrator John Edward Sowerby (1825-1870). With exception of the clubmosses and the rare parsley fern, all the illustrations in the book were drawn from specimens that Gissing had collected within 12 miles of Wakefield.
The teasel has collapsed under 2-3 inches of overnight snow.
Three female pheasants join the goldfinches, house sparrows, blue tits, great tits, blackbirds, nuthatch and robin at the bird feeders.
They appear to hear a noise and freeze in alert mode. They remain motionless for five minutes or more, gradually relaxing, as if it’s a pheasant meditation session – an ideal opportunity to draw them.
At 3.30 pm the pheasants head off towards the wood as the light fades.
At the Strands, the canal overflowed the towpath, leaving grassy debris along the lower wires of fences. Both canal-side pubs – the Bingley Arms and the Navigation – had their cellars flooded. Further downstream at Broad Cut Low Lock, one boat sank and two were dumped on the banking by the flood waters.
The male couldn’t quite get past the female pheasant as they came down the garden path this morning.
He strikes out to treat her to his magnificent display as he struts across the frozen pond.
But as soon as he steps onto the ice he sinks into the icy water in a gap at the edge.
He recovers as best he can and careers onwards over the ice.
The femle seems inimpressed as she ambles across the frosted lawn towards the bird feeders.
Amongst the regular birds at the feeders late this afternoon, a female blackcap – with a reddish rather than a black cap like the male – which fended off the sparrows and blue tits from the sunflower hearts feeder but deferred to the robin.
It returned later and was the last bird at the feeders. By then the light had faded so much that we needed binoculars to pick out the colours.
Recent winds had resulted in the water level in the pond dropping. Yesterday’s rain topped it up to its fullest, overflowing level and last night’s frost froze it over.
Smithy Brook has spilt over onto the pastures a the lower end of Hostingley Lane by the Go Outdoors store. A dabchick divves amongst the beck-side trees.
At the far end of Low Lane, a male blackbird with white head and a small patch of white on the shoulder.
Yesterday morning: a buzzard on a fence post.
A bit of rivalry amongst ponies in a muddy pasture on Sandy Lane.
The rain’s lashing against my studio window and it isn’t looking promising for New Year’s Day but I’ve finished my old A6 sketchbook and I’m ready to start a new A5 landscape Pink Pig sketchbook tomorrow. Whatever the weather throws at us.
No, my brother Bill didn’t actually appear in this year’s production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ at the Old Vic, but he did play Scrooge in our ambitious multi-media version in 1966. I played Marley’s ghost.
It’s been so long since I tried anything in acrylics but after watching Wendy Barratt’s Sky Artist of the Year masterclass on painting a portrait with a limited palette, I thought that I’d try it. This is Thomas Gissing, pharmacist and botanist, who makes an appearance in one of my forthcoming Dalesman articles.
It’s so different to my regular pen and watercolours approach and I realise that I need to be better organised to bring it together but I will give it another try, perhaps with a simpler subject, such as the box and sphere still life that Tai Shan Shierenberg painted earlier in the series.
As I draw the hyacinth, there’s a scent that reminds me of bluebell woods, a reminder that in a week’s time the days will be starting to get longer so spring isn’t too far away.