Day: June 3, 2014

Book Shelf

bookshelfI’ve been reading so much recently that I’ve slipped a bit on drawing. Three of the books were about drawing so I ought to have all the inspiration that I need by now.

This section of my book shelf includes my current reading such as library books and Dummies Guides to various computer programs.

There are also odd things that haven’t yet found a place elsewhere such as the green and blue paperback which is a Donald Duck comic strip book in German that I thought might help me to learn the language. Next to it is purple box that contains a wildflower meadow mat which I must now roll-out over a sunny patch in the back garden.

Pen and Paper

I’ve drawn this with a Rotring Rapidoliner which I thought might work on the absorbent paper of a sketchbook that I’m trying to finish off. The paper too soft for the pens I use but it won’t take a watercolour wash without going blotchy. The worst of both worlds.

It’s a Wainwright sketchbook that I bought a year ago because I liked its hardback binding. I think that whoever designed it was so keen to make it like a ‘real book’ that they used paper that was better suited to printing.

At this rate it will last me another year.

Clay Pipe

clay pipe
2.5 x 1.8 cm

I spotted this fragment of clay pipe when I went out at sunset to see if I could catch the slug that’s been eating our French bean seedlings. In thirty years of digging I find it surprising that this is the first time I’ve spotted it. I’ve found pipe fragments before but never anything as elegantly decorated as this.

I’m assuming that it was dropped here as we haven’t ever imported topsoil. The style of the lettering makes me think 18th rather than 19th century so I’m surprised that it looks so fresh after having been in the topsoil for a couple of centuries.

Perhaps the brown rats have brought it to the surface. They’ve been active under our compost bins and we recently spread compost on this bed.

Who the ‘JG’? This was farm land so could it have been one of the Gemmels, a local farming family?

As we’re only 40 yards from a ford that ran along Coxley beck it could have been dropped by any drover, wagon driver, traveller or labourer who happened to be passing by.

J Gambier

A Google search reveals that one of the biggest pipe manufacturers was J Gambier of Paris, a firm which offered its customers over 2,000 different kinds of pipe.

Link; Dawnmist Studio Clay Pipe Gallery