Ground ivy, growing at on the grassy verge of a path near the river.
Deadnettle
Month: May 2023
The Ages of Man
Barbara’s brother John had a starring role in an ‘ages of man’ illustration I drew for Dorling Kindersley, which, as far as I remember, never made it into print. Also appearing, John’s oldest son Peter and his younger brothers Simon and Richard.
For the older versions of John I photographed his dad Bill.
It’s so easy to take a reference photograph on you phone these days but back in 1994 I had a print film from a trip to Scotland to finish off and I took it in to one of several processing shops in town and went for extra large prints.
It would have been so much easier with digital photography and you might think, what a shame that John’s performance on the guitar wasn’t recorded as a video clip along with the song but in reality he couldn’t play a note.
A Lighter Touch
I’ve been reading a list of ‘Five Essential Tips for Beginners’ in digital art and number one is: ‘Use a light touch when drawing on your tablet of device. This will help prevent unwanted pressure marks and smudging’.
That’s good advice. Having got through two PenTips 2 soft tips for my Apple Pencil in just a couple of weeks, I’m pleased that I’ve done better with the last remaining one.
I’m hoping that the lighter touch that I’m learning to use will transfer to my regular drawing with a pen on paper.
Another problem that I had with my way of drawing was that I was inadvertently changing the colour of my brush by resting a finger on the screen and invoking the eye-dropper tool. I’ve changed that in preferences so I can access the eye-dropper with a different shortcut.
John and Margaret
We’re looking through old albums, putting together a short book of memories of Barbara’s brother John. Going back to the pre-digital 1960s, 70s and 80s are plenty of groups at parties, children standing on lawns and a couple of formal wedding groups, but for me the stand out images are by the street photographers in seaside towns.
The close up of John and Margaret reminds me of films from the Swinging Sixties such as Michael Winner’s The System, where Oliver Reed plays a seaside street photographer, but we need John on his own on the cover, so we’re going for another seaside town photograph.
The original of this photograph is small and in black and white but I couldn’t resist using Photoshop’s colourisation neural filter on it. I think that it’s worked well here.
Although Barbara has just pointed out that Margaret’s pink cardigan has one yellow sleeve. I better correct that.
Borlotta Bean
We’re growing borlotti beans this year, along with some regular French runners. The advantage with borlottis is that if you don’t get around to picking the pods and using them as runner beans – which is usually the case with us – you can un-pod the streaky purple beans and use them, or dry them to use later.
These had been grown on the kitchen windowsill so, like the one on the bottom left, they were leaning over towards the light. I turned the around to draw them just a couple hours ago and already the stems have straightened up.
Sketching by the Pond
I’m working on my July issue of my Wild Yorkshire nature diary for The Dalesman using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to fit everything in.
Being pressed for space I’ve tried to fit the swarming bees into the margin and, to add to the drama, instead of my usual smiling mugshot, I’ve tried a cartoon of Barbara and I on bee alert, blocking holes with steel wool and masking tape. This might not make it into the final cut, but I like to experiment.
‘A *Noble* Failure’
My previous Twitter post got 83 views, yesterday’s Tweet has had 5,135. Thank you Scott McCloud, who re-tweeted it to his 327 thousand followers.
And I love his comment on my comic strip workings-out:
A *noble* failure, at least!”
Scott McCloud
That like J K Rowling noticing a short story I’d written and saying ‘Not bad for a Muggle!’ or Raymond Blanc tasting my speciality, cheese on toast, and saying ‘Pas mal pour un cuisinier anglais!’
I’m just ready to start a new book, so I think that it’s time to read Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics trilogy again 🙂
Non-sequitur
In Scott McCloud’s theory of comics, a ‘non-sequitur’ is a transition between panels where there’s no link whatsoever. These are random doodles in Procreate but I definitely haven’t managed a non-sequitur between the last two panels because they’re plainly taking place on a dark and stormy night in some gothic thriller. And I can believe that the feisty chicken is giving the man some pause for thought.
Some Rambling Advice
Happy birthday to Huddersfield Town Supporter John (you can tell it’s him by the Terriers scarf).
Garden Painting Workshop
I did consider taking acrylics and a canvas to today’s painting workshop at RHS Harlow Carr run by their current artist in residence, Hilary Burnett Cooper, but I stuck with my regular pen and watercolour and it was a chance to try my larger watercolour box on location. I recently updated it so that there are fewer strident greenish blues and earthy browns, replacing those with colours that would be more useful for flower painting.
Link
Hilary Burnett Cooper Landscape, scenic and figurative artist