Tomatoes are fruits, so I’m calling this a fruit bowl. I’m trying out the loose version of Victorian cross-hatching that I’m intending to use for the Waterton comic.
I’m missing getting out to draw natural history. I’m glad that at this time last year I kept taking advantage of every free day to draw orchids, waders and reed-beds at the RSPB Old Moor reserve. But on Friday I did get half an hour, between other commitments, to sit and draw a branch of cotoneaster. The sketch of the girl with the ribbon in her hair is from a oil on canvas portrait of my mother, painted c. 1924.
We grabbed a late lunch at the Caffe Capri on Friday, giving me a chance to draw a beech tree on Horbury High Street. The tree seems to be is suffering from being almost totally tarmacked in as the ends of many of its twigs are devoid of leaves but we’ve had a cool, dry June so perhaps in a milder, damper summer it would recover.
Just so lovely in a quiet way, perfect for these midsummer subjects. The tree is perfection in its energetic simplicity.
Thank you Laura. I was drawing the tree more quickly than usual because a) It was good to have a complete change from the concentration involved in the comic strip panels, b) It was a welcome break after a busy week, c) It was such a beautiful afternoon, I have to keep reminding myself that I’m in the grim West Riding of Yorkshire, because it feels so continental sitting at a pavement cafe and d) I reckoned that if I worked fast enough I could manage a quick drawing in the time that it took the Mediterranean roast vegetable bruschetta to appear on the table. Sketching paradise really! If I’ve got time I like to get hypnotically involved in as precise an observation of foliage as I can manage, more of a botanical study, so it’s good to have a change of pace.