Month: December 2020

Out of the Woods

birch bracket
Birch Polypore or Razorstrop Fungus, Piptoporus betulinus, on silver birch at the top end of Newmillerdam.

Last month’s lockdown and the new Tier 3 restrictions staring today mean we can’t go far, so we’ve been looking for walks closer to home: yesterday a woodland walk at the top end of Coxley valley, today a circuit of the lake at Newmillerdam.

goosanders

There are four female goosanders at the sleepy lagoon at the top end of the lake and hundreds of black-headed gulls (none with ‘black’ heads at this time of year) hanging around in the willowy backwaters of the western shore. All the regulars are here – mallards, tufted duck, coot, moorhen, heron, cormorant and great-crested grebe – but conspicuously absent are what are normally the noisiest birds on the lake, the Canada geese. I suspect that they’re still in the area, perhaps heading for larger lakes such as Anglers.

Black-headed gulls
Black-headed gulls

About fifteen years ago, one of Newmillerdam’s trees left me scarred for life: as I stooped under the leafy branch of a sycamore, I gouged my scalp on the sharp end of a trimmed back branch. This morning I should have been at Pinderfields having the small wart that has grown over the wound removed, but the Dermatology Department rang me at breakfast-time to say that because of a positive test for Covid at the hospital, my minor operation has been postponed.

We’re not out of the woods yet.

Cavendish

fruit and cartoon characters

The Cavendish banana accounts for 47% of world production and makes the perfect name for a butler, especially as the Cavendish originated from the hothouses of Chatsworth House, the ultimate setting for a country house murder mystery.

I try to catch the individual character of a fruit as I draw it, so how would I bring that out as a cartoon character? The Royal Gala apple made me think of an overindulged Henry VIII character, the lemon of Poirot’s secretary Miss Lemon but it was that last banana, with a deferential hunched stoop and a slightly over-ripe seediness that made me think of an imperious but dodgy butler from a creaky 1930s murder mystery.

His colours are taken straight from the banana my watercolour sketch, using the Photoshop eye-dropper tool. Only the flesh tone needed lightening.

Elderman

Elder man

“Respect your elders?! Don’t make me laugh.” grumbles Sam Bucus, village elder, when I bump into him on our Monday morning stroll in Illingworth Park, “Hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple . . . they’re all included in Doctor Hooper’s hedgerow dating system except, you guessed it, elder! We’re the forgotten shrubs in the hedge.”

“And did I tell you about the time I auditioned for the part of Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy? Too wooden, indeed!”

elder man

Everything in this Photoshop collage was photographed in the Park, this time on a rather dull grey morning, which actually proved useful when constructing the figure as I didn’t have any conspicuous highlights and shadows to deal with. To tie him in with the background, I added a transparent shadow layer, using greens and browns taken with the eye-dropper tool from my background photograph instead of the neutral grey that I might normally use for shadows.

I did consider toning down and blurring the background but decided I’d just stick the original so that the whole thing looked like a regular digital snapshot and didn’t look too stage managed.

I stuck with the old elder boughs growing alongside the allotment fence and I’m pleased with the sinewy anatomical look they give him.

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Categorized as Drawing