Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Card for Henry, who just before Christmas got to meet Santa in Lapland and, equally exciting, got to see a superb display of the Northern Lights.
'When you walk in the snow,
And it's over your feet
You can never know
Who you're likely to meet.
It might be a hare
Or a lemming or goose
Or perhaps the Great Bear!
- or BIG-FOOT on the loose!
But now all of the Snow Folk
Have gathered to say:
'Happy Birthday to Henry -
Have a great day!'
Using Clip Studio Paint for frames, cartoons and text (which I then traced with the ‘textured pen’ that I used for the cartoons).
My first attempt at animation using Adobe Fresco. The man’s walk consists of 8 individual frames and his progress across the screen follows a path added to the man’s layer in the animation.
When this year’s live performance children’s Nativity play at the local church proved impractical, my sister Linda devised a cast of fourteen wooden spoon puppet characters: angels, shepherds, Mary & Joseph, the Three Wise Men and, rather stealing the show, two officious Roman soldiers with punkish plumes.
Despite the on-stage shenanigans, the Romans, angels and shepherds proved to be the best of friends at the after show party.
In fact the entire cast is getting together again for a scaled down private performance at a family Christmas party.
These characters are the Vladimir and Estragon of nursery rhyme mice, so a dim and glowering background suits the piece, and fits in with the ‘lost in the Scottish Borders’ setting.
Some of my Night before Christmas mice have been drafted in for a comic strip version of the nursery rhyme How many miles to Babylon?
Although first published in 1801, it’s possible that the rhyme originated in the 1600s as a Scottish Border folksong.
Scottish Borders is the setting I’m going for.
The tones and textures were added to these pen and ink mice by using a clipping mask in Adobe Fresco. For the comic that I’ve got in mind, Mouse 1, Row 2, is the one to go for, drawn with Fresco’s ‘watercolor wet spatter’ brush. I want to rather dreary and slightly disconcerting look, like a production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot. If it was a Victorian story, I’d go to town with the ‘cross hatch’ from the selection of ‘Comic’ brushes.
I’ve drawn the sleeping dog and the cat and mouse as cut outs today but it looks as if we won’t have room for the dog.
‘Not a creature is stirring . . .’ in my Night Before Christmas scene but how do I imply that the mouse isn’t going to end up as a midnight snack for the cat?
I’m going for more of a cartoon look for the mouse.
Although I’d follow Beatrix Potter’s method of not adding much in the way of costume when she needed to emphasise the animal nature of her character.
We’ll be setting up the Night Before Christmas display in the Redbox Gallery on Friday and, as a break from constructing the scenery out of foamboard, I’ve moved on to the sleeping dog character.
‘No creature was stirring’, says the poem, so that’s the mood I’m going for here.