Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
Another lockdown birthday, this time for Sofia, aged 12, who created a table character for a booklet of What am I? puzzles.
Just been talking to a neighbour who’s a teacher. Getting schools running again is proving an even more difficult than closing them.
Start with a squiggle . . .
Our latest assignment in Mattias Adolfsson’s Art of Sketching course.
Some saucy stand-ups on the open mike night but I’m afraid the Cruets weren’t impressed. They gave the acts a peppery reception: inclined to take things with a pinch of salt was one comment. Even the mustard wasn’t keen and the non-brewed condiment was positively vinegary.
On my Art of Sketching course, Mattias Adolfsson encourages by saying that no idea is too silly to make a drawing. I think that I’ve managed to go a long way to proving him wrong.
Yes, I know 35 mm and Polaroid are enjoying a bit of a revival but Instamatic and 120 roll film for Box Brownies are more nostalgia and nouvelle vague.
That’s supposed to be a pack of Polaroid film on the right, but he does look rather like a mobile phone.
Once again, this is more cartooning for my Mattias Adolfsson The Art of Sketching course.
I’m missing our local Penguin colony on the High Street; lined up along their ledges with that evocative smell: fresh paperback. Bright plumage with distinctive orange stripes; a crisp riffle as you browse your way through and, on their backs, to make them even more attractive, each has a unique patch of blurb. I’m concerned because, these days, we don’t see many Puffins. York once had a thriving colony of them, nestling on stacks near the Jorvik Centre.
I can tell that the lockdown has gone on for too long because a few weeks ago I started reading – for the first time – a textbook from my college days Man and the Vertebrates: 1 by A. S. Romer. It was written pre-DNA studies, so really it’s out of date, but it’s interesting to go through a story that I’m familiar with through David Attenborough’s Life on Earth and other books and documentaries, but written from a different point of view. I don’t think that I’ll be going on to Volume 2, which is about human anatomy and evolution. We’ve come a long way since the book was reprinted in 1963 and even further since the original edition in 1933.
The cartoon is my weekend’s homework for my Mattias Adolfsson illustration course.
I’m planning an animation with a Charles Waterton character who will be a Wallace & Gromit-style Plasticine figure in a miniature stage set based on Waterton’s study at Walton Hall. Waterton enthusiastically describes his conservation efforts which are all on a rather grand scale. This is where my second character, Waterton’s sidekick ‘The Nondescript’ comes in: he comes up with simpler, smaller and-here’s-one-you-can-make-at home projects, which we can all tackle.
My version of Waterton’s famous creation is more down-to-earth than the Squire himself. He might be from the Deepest Jungles of South America but he’s no Paddington Bear. He’s part Spirit of the Forest and part trusty retainer, like John Ogden, Waterton’s gamekeeper, but he probably also has a hint of easy going rock star charisma about him (perhaps like Francis Rossi from Status Quo?). He’s developing into an interesting character.
I like the partners-in-crime camaraderie of the pair in my first sketch. I can imagine the duo getting into all sorts of scrapes as they create ‘The World’s First Nature Reserve’ at Walton Park.
I’ve already tackled the story of the nature reserve in one of my pocket-sized local guides, Waterton’s Park, and in Part III: The Defence of Nature in John Whitaker’s Charles Waterton, A Comic Book Adventure. When I drew the comic strip, I thought of it in terms of a storyboard for a live-action film, so this time it’s less period drama and hopefully more like Aardman’s The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists, which featured Charles Darwin. That was a lot of fun, right down to the end credits. I must also try and take a look at Chris Butler’s The Missing Link, which featured a Nondescript character coming in from the wilds.
Mrs Wing-Nut came from a long line of Whitworth thread coach bolts. Sadly today she’s been cross-threaded. Nothing that a squirt of WD40 shouldn’t be able to remedy.
Enrolling on Mattias Adolfsson’s Sketching course can seriously undermine your grip on reality . . .
Now, I like fountain pens and I like technical pens, but which is best?
Just starting my homework for this week on Mattias Adolfsson’s online course, The Art of Sketching: Transform Your Doodles into Art.
Three weeks ago the hawthorn had burst into fresh green leaf and our local ponies were tucking into it. My comic strip is based on actual events: we were following two ponies along the lane, one of which whinnied and backed along a track when surprised by a blackbird bursting out of the hedge.
I was asking the rider of the other pony why hers, which was unruffled by the blackbird incident, kept so close to the hedge:
“It’s the hawthorn, he likes anything he can get his mouth around!”
As we stood back to let the ponies go by, a couple of the people who live by the stables were standing nearby drinking their morning coffee.
“Some of the ponies around here could do to see a psychologist!” I suggested.
“Not just the ponies,” the man agreed, “Some of the people too!”
I’ve struggled with this comic strip. I started drawing on my iPad in Clip Studio Paint, then decided that I’d be better drawing with pen on paper and finally, for the last two panels, I went back to my iPad. As you can see from my rough, I thought about including the blackbird incident and the hawthorn nibbling as panels but then I decided that, rather like a situation comedy, this strip should focus on the relationship between the two ponies on their home turf.
On balance, I probably prefer the extra action in my original rough, but it’s time to leave this strip and go on to a fresh one, and I have got plans to take the characters further afield.
When travel restrictions are eased, if tourists ever get to travel the 7,000 light years to IC 4703, The Eagle Nebula, they’re going to want to take home a souvenir of its bucket-list highlight The Pillars of Creation. So how about this pen, pencil and eraser set?
The Pogo Pen was inspired by a great niece and nephew’s ongoing attempt to pogo jump the height of Everest, in 9cm increments. I realise that this would be more like a rubber stamp than a pen.
But my favourite pen out of this batch is the Frankenstein Pen, modelled on Boris Karloff’s neck bolt. Like the Apple Pencil, it’s rechargeable . . . if you happen to be on the top of a mountain in Transylvania during a thunderstorm.