Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
For my winter Dalesman spread, I needed a spot of colour so I’m including yellow brain fungus, Tremella mesenterica, which, as here, can also be orange. I photographed last January at Emroyd Common, growing on elder, but it doesn’t feed directly on wood: it’s parasitic on species of a crusty fungus, Peniophora, which grows on dead twigs and branches.
I’ve added watercolour to the acorns that I drew earlier this month.
I’m drawing our sparrow nestbox for a forthcoming article in The Dalesman and, rather than draw it from life or trace it from a photograph, I’m trying freehand perspective. I didn’t draw an horizon line or plot vanishing points, I just drew as near to the way they appear in a photograph.
Having used ruler and set square for the pencil, I’ll use my usual freehand fountain pen for the drawing itself, so hopefully it will looked relaxed but plausible.
Garden designer Jack Wallington and Wakefield artist Helen Thomas launched the ‘Dandelion and Double Yellows – Your Gallery’ online gallery at Wakefield’s Festival of the Earth yesterday.
Dandelions and Double Yellows – Your Gallery at Creative Wakefield
A marine theme for today’s homemade birthday card. Tempted to do the inshore stations next . . .
I like the printed look that you get using flat colours so I’ve been going through a tutorial on digital colouring. It should work well in my printed publications.
You scan your pen and ink drawing in black and white drawing at 600 dpi, using the ‘text’ setting. This is to avoid the slightly fuzzy ‘anti-aliased’ edges you’d get using the regular 300 dpi colour or grayscale settings. In Adobe Photoshop you can then go to the Channels palette (above) and press that first button at the bottom of the palette ‘Load Channel as Selection’.
Invert the selection and, on a new layer and fill with the foreground colour. For a comic strip you’d fill with pure black but here I’ve filled with brown.
Lock this line art layer you’ve created add the flat colours on separate layers, with shading, as on the wall in my top illustration, on another layer.
I tried the ‘Load Channel as Selection’ with my finished colour version then, after inverting it as before, filled it with black, producing this grayscale version.
A fallow stag bellows to bring his group of hinds together and soon sees off a young buck that is hanging around at the edge of the herd.
The red deer hinds have gathered in the lower corner of the park and some wander out of the wood as we approach. A group of 10 or 15 mallards have gathered under the oaks, probably browsing for acorns. Squirrels are busy, but they seem to be going for sweet chestnuts. Sadly, Sudden Oak Death has infected some trees up by Stainborough Castle and that area is currently being cleared prior to replanting.
We’re told that the resident red deer stag is called Bertie. If he’s the one with the hinds, he’s lost his antlers. He’s the one in the background in my photograph, on the far right.
To give the gatepost a black and white treatment, I marked the shapes of the shadows – the spot blacks as they’re called in comics – with an ‘x’, then filled in with a Pentel Brush Pen. Drawn using a Lamy nexx with a bold nib.
Another busy week for birthdays.
Looking at Hilary’s cafe from the garden you can guess which was the original cottage and in what order the adjacent cottage, lean-to extensions and extensions of extensions were added.