Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Drawing the dogs and trying the s’mores kronut, a cross between a croissant and a donut, at the ØL cafe in Horbury this morning.
The dogs took so much interest in their surroundings that they soon wound their leads around table legs and chair legs.
We had seven or eight Howgate Wonder cooking apples from our double cordon by the patio this year, enough to stew to add to our porridge for a week or two.
A musical interlude.
A birthday card for one of my more energetic relatives.
I’ve done so much black and white work recently that I thought it was time to return to base and go back to brown Lamy pen and my Bijou watercolours to draw this rowan leaf from the front garden. Unfortunately my Pentel Water Brush is all but clogged up now, so the watercolour wash is a bit limited.
Mustard pot, yogurt container and treacle tins on my shelf in the studio.
When you look closely at this fungus growing on a stump by the lake at Newmillerdam you can see that the cap is dotted with scales and the stem looks rather shaggy.
The nearest that I can get to it in the field guide is honey fungus, but I hadn’t realised that the stems could be so shaggy.
On a felled log, water had gathered in a hole in the bark, creating a temporary habitat.
On our errands this afternoon, I drew one of the carved heads on one of the former banks in Ossett and the door in the Carnegie Free Library in Horbury.
What birthday card do you get for someone who’s just passed their HGV?
The Falcon Houseware enamel mug that I use when I’m painting watercolours or ink washes in the studio. The pieces of timber are offcuts from when we constructed the compost bins in the spring.
Drawn with a dip pen and Rohrer’s indian ink, coloured in Photoshop using a limited range of greys, mainly 25%, 50% and 75%, with a few darker shadows and highlights.
Arkan Sonney, the Isle of Man’s lucky hedgehog, makes a return appearance, along with his chums Moddey Dhoo a.k.a. the Black Dog of Peel Castle and the Buggane, everyone’s favourite Manx bogeyman, on another of this week’s homemade cards.