A bit of drama for a forthcoming Dalesman article.
The Chairman’s Chain
Category: Drawing
Stan Barstow
Novelist Stan Barstow at Lumb Bank, leading an Arvon Foundation creative writing course, 1975. Drawn from a photograph, photographer not credited, in his 2001 autobiography, In My Own Good Time.
This is the first drawing I’ve made using Procreate on my iPad Pro for quite a while. I used one of the new brushes from the latest version of the program: the Bellerive brush from the Pens folder. It approximates my Lamy fountain pen drawings.
Osprey Daylite Plus
On a recent rainy walk along the shores of Lake Windermere, my seven year old haversack was the worse for wear, the rubberised lining disintegrating, so I chose this Osprey Daylite Plus for our latest walk on the Thames path a couple of weeks ago.
I drew in bamboo pen in Noodler’s black ink and, as the blotty bits are going to take a long time to dry, I photographed the drawing, rather than putting it on the scanner.
The Wedding Party
My thanks to Florence for this portrait, drawn at Isabel and Declan’s wedding celebration in Mexborough last month. Colour added by me in Adobe Illustrator. That’s how I’d like to look (I requested a bit more hair on top) so I’ll update my social media.
Setting out for the celebrations, I packed everything that I needed for sketching – fountain pens, water-brush, A6 sketchbook – then forgot to pack the bag itself, so for the weekend it was back to basics, borrowing Barbara’s Uniball signo gel pen, which is great for drawing, and her notebook, which luckily is unlined.
Five minutes walk down the road from our hotel, the Pastures Grange at Mexborough, Denaby Ings Yorkshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve lies alongside the river on the Doncaster and Worksop extension of the Trans-Pennine Trail. Gadwall and heron joined mallards, coot and moorhen on a small reed-fringed lagoon.
After the buffet . . .
As soon as the music started I had to give up any attempt at chatting and switched to drawing.
Florence joined me and we took turns with the one-and-only sketchbook.
I was impressed by the way she caught the action of the dancers, including the bride performing a forward roll.
Honey Fungus
My recycled materials made-to-measure for A5 sketchbooks drawing board is proving useful as a lightweight outdoor studio/nature table.
I wouldn’t normally pick anything on a woodland trail to draw it but I don’t think anyone would object to me taking a closer look at this honey fungus, provided I don’t go spreading the spores around.
I’ve passed this old honey fungus a couple of times, deciding that I’d prefer to draw a fungus that isn’t so overgrown with dead grass stems and starting to get buried in fallen leaves.
But that’s really the story of what’s going on here. The honey fungus are returning these birch logs at the edge of the path in New Hall Wood into the leaf mould of the woodland floor.
The Amethyst Sketchbook
This A6 Pink Pig is my current sketchbook for when we’re off on day to day errands, so it starts, on the basis that you’ve got to start somewhere, with a very quick sketch of a block of flats in Wakefield (below, left).
A6 is a perfect size for when you haven’t got the time to do anything more ambitious.
I had a little more time for panorama from the Shelley Garden Centre.
If I haven’t got a wider view I’ll draw a close up of a plant . . .
Chinese Taro
I drew Chinese Taro at another garden centre, Carr Gate. Also known as Chinese ape, Buddha’s hand and hooded dwarf elephant ear, Alocasia cuccullata, I’m surprised to learn in Wikipedia that it’s a member of the Arum family. I would have guessed at a Ficus, a relative of the rubber plant.
If nothing else is available, I’ll draw a chair. I’ve drawn them hundreds of times but I still struggle with them.
I always find myself looking for the negative shapes between the legs as a way of checking proportions. This goes right back to my grammar school art teacher Reginald Preston, who in one of his art lessons challenged us to draw a teetering pile of school chairs.
On any appointment in Horbury I can usually find an interesting architectural detail if I’m looking out on the High Street or Queen Street. It will usually be a Victorian chimney pot but this buttress above the Spice Kitchen takeaway could be much older. Some buildings in Horbury date from medieval times but the original timber is usually hidden behind later stone or brick facing.
This final page, so far, includes a weeping willow in the back garden of the Quaker Meeting House on Thornhill Street, Wakefield, drawn at last week’s Naturalists’ Society meeting.
I didn’t attempt to identify the succulent in the little pot on the table at Sainsbury’s. It’s plastic.
Elon Musk
The man of the moment: I was delighted to get the chance to interview him for an article in this month’s Dalesman.
No, not Elon Musk, who addressed the Unite the Kingdom rally in Trafalgar Square via a video link yesterday, but Wakefield comic artist and New York Times bestselling author Darryl Cunningham, who has just launched his latest book Elon Musk, American Oligarch, described by Alan Moore as “an exceptional piece of work, right when we need it most.”
September’s Dalesman also includes my regular Wild Yorkshire nature diary which focuses on Addingford Cutting, a surprisingly well hidden local landmark.
Sketchboard
I like to rest my hand on my sketchbook as I’m drawing, which I find awkward as I get near the edge of the page so, inspired by the Sketchboard Pro, which has a rebate that precisely fits my iPad Pro, I’ve made myself a board to snugly fit my A5 Pink Pig sketchbook, with a 4 inch surround, that I can use in either landscape or portrait format.
It’s built up from a corrugated cardboard, so it was useful having a guillotine to cut out the matching pieces. I left a rebate at either end of the slot to accommodate the spiral binding of the sketchbook. It’s not shown in this photo because I hadn’t realised until I tried it for size that I’d need one on the outer edge. I draw on both sides of the page, so I need to flip the sketchbook over to draw on the right-hand page.
I discovered that it was best to glue every layer, rather than rely on masking tape to hold it all together.
I had an offcut of foamboard that I used for the top layer.
Finally I covered the whole thing with the tail end of a roll of hessian wallpaper that I’d used back in the 1970s when making a noticeboard (later rejigged as a couple of hinged pairs of display boards for craft fairs).
Everything I used was recycled apart from a 250ml bottle of ArtStudio Matte Glue, £1.29 from The Range.
Now I need to get out and actually use it.
Classic Fit
The good news is that my new Rohan jeans which arrived today fit me perfectly . . . which wasn’t the case two months ago when I tried some on in the Rohan Harrogate shop and discovered that the next size up felt much more comfortable.
Forty years ago, when I was 34 years old, I remember I had a 34 inch waist and a 34 inch inside leg and I’ve been that ever since, so I decided that it was time for a bit of a challenge.
The No-Scone Diet
I set out on a series of slightly more energetic walks than my usual pace – more of that in a later post – but also cut out on anything extra between meals so no:
- cream scones or flapjack with our morning coffee
- the odd handful of crisps
- and no red wine at the weekend 😮
No one said that this would be easy!
However, it’s worked as I’m pleased to be back to my regular waist size and I’ve lost half a stone, that’s 7 pounds, around 3 kilograms.
Maybe I can now allow myself the occasional scone . . .
Green Matcha Scones at the Cafe Vie
Green scones are a new one for me: scone of the day at Cafe Vie this morning was matcha and white chocolate.
I’ve just started working through the ‘100 prompts for inspired sketching on the go’ in John Gillard’s Coffee Break Sketching. In prompt number 2, I find that I can’t work fast enough to complete onr quick observational sketch between each sip of coffee in a single break, so this morning I’m continuing where I left off from a few shaky sketches I made at the Hepworth last week.
My new favourite pen for everyday drawing is an old Lamy Nexx with a broad nib. The broad nib flows more freely than my fine and extra fine Lamys, which might explain why, unlike them, it hasn’t clogged up. The broader nib gives a bolder, varied line, perfect for a coffee break sketch.
It’s loaded with DeAtramentis Document Ink which is waterproof as soon as it dries, which is a good idea as several of my sketches were partly washed out after one of my sketchbooks got soaked around the edges in my haversack during a Lake District downpour on Tuesday.
I’ve occasionally picked up a sketchbook when my hands are wet, blotting any drawing I happen to touch.
Link
John Gillard on Instagram
Cafe Vie, Thompson’s Yard, Ossett, on Instagram
My wildyorkshire Instagram account