Author: Richard

Celebration

guitarists
Dylan and James

Celebrating a golden wedding, Lin (my sister) and Dave’s, with their sons Richard, James and Tom plus grandson Dylan supplying the music.

guitarists
Dylan and Tom (not the complete drum kit: in addition to the bongos he had a tambourine which he played with his right foot).

I already knew that my sister during her time at Cambridge had had two close encounters with Prince Charles, himself a student at there at the time: one when she nearly ran in to him on her bike and another when she was next in the queue to him in the bread shop and she bought the muffin that had been next to the one that His Royal Highness bought.

Prince Charles
Lin takes Prince Charles home one weekend to meet our mum and Burke the black cat. This looks like a fake to me, but then surely my mum wouldn’t normally dress like that to take in the washing?

But according to a Golden Wedding ballad performed by the boys there was more to it than that. In their version it’s Charles that runs into Lin to get her attention and Dave – a student in Liverpool – has to leap on his scooter and drive to Cambridge for a dramatic face-off with the Prince on the college croquet lawn.

wedding cartoon

My brother Bill and I were the grooms at the wedding. Family friend Muriel was convinced that I’d get my hair cut.

Manx sheep

More celebrations: happy birthday to Zoe on the Isle of Man.

pigeon
Town pigeon taking great care to select the perfect twig at Pinderfields this morning.

Slim Sim

Missing out on the line drawing stage and going straight to areas of tone and colour, using the Lasso Fill tool in Clip Studio Paint. Foot drawn from life. The man in the hat reminds me of a slim version of Alastair Sim.

Drawstring Bag

bag

This soft drawstring bag is for my dji Osmo Mobile 3, a kind of Steadicam device for filming with a mobile phone (even with my shaky hands!). I bought it immediately pre-pandemic for a short film I had in mind but two years later I haven’t picked up the pieces of that project.

Summer Pruning

appples

The weight of apples and leafy summer growth proved too much of our Howgate Wonder double cordon and one of the main branches collapsed forwards on the patio. It wasn’t broken so we tied it back in, pruned back the majority of this year’s leafy growth and picked up the eight or so apples that fell off during the process. They’re not ripe but we can stew them with a bit of brown sugar and water.

Backpack

Lowe Alpine Edge 22 backpack.

Published
Categorized as Drawing

Ink Bottles

Rohrer’s, Winsor & Newton, Pelikan, Noodler’s, Universal stamp pad, FW Acrylic inks (plus Tipp-Ex and Rowney Soluble Matt Varnish . . . drawn with my Lamy AL-star filled with De Atramentis Document Ink, which dries waterproof so that I could add White Nights watercolour with a Daler Aquafine Sable Round.

Broken Bricks

sketchbook page

I open the patio windows and step out barefoot to pick up the bird bath, which is supported by a circle of those broken bricks. I stick to the afternoon shadow from the house but the last step out into the sun on the concrete flags is uncomfortably hot.

apple leaves
The Howgate Wonder has plenty of developing apples, the Golden Spire next to it not so many and it has shed one of those, which dropped into the bird bath.

Hand and Sandal

sandal

It’s too warm to sit in the sun this afternoon so these iPad drawings were made in the studio which I’ve managed to keep a little below 90℉.

hand
Published
Categorized as Drawing

Around Old Ossett

Around Old Ossett

I’d normally settle down to a session on InDesign on a rainy day but it’s a heatwave keeping us grounded today. In the transfer from my old defunct PC to my iMac, I’m taking advantage of it being easier in InDesign to take images across the gutter.

I’m pleased with how the vectorised place name cartoons have reproduced, slightly simplified into blocks of solid colour, like little woodcuts.

Link

Around Old Ossett at Willow Island Editions, £2.95, post free in the U.K.