Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
We set off at 8.30 or so and whisked down the M.1. to Linnie & Dave’s
Where we had lunch before going and putting my things in my room at Evelyn Gardens.
Then Shopping – Mother bought a bright Red Trouser Suit.
Trying the new Manga brushes, including the vector G pen in Adobe Fresco.
Sketches from Newmillerdam, Harrogate and Queen Street, Horbury, in my pocket-sized A6 landscape Seawhite Travel Journal. Lamy and TWSBI EcoT pens, De Atramentis ink (a mix of brown and black as both were running out).
Hands drawn on the iPad with Adobe Fresco and Clip Studio Paint plus one in regular pen and ink and watercolour.
Clip Studio Paint on the iPad: experimenting with adding colour.
I’m also trying screen mirroring so that if I’m working in, for example, Photoshop on my iMac, and I’ve got something intricate to do, like erasing background texture on a scan of a sketchbook page, I can switch over to working with the Apple Pencil on my iPad.
It would be possible to do a whole drawing this way but with Adobe Fresco, Clip Studio Paint and even a version of Photoshop on the iPad there’s no need to, I can draw directly.
I haven’t noticed any delay when I’m drawing using screen mirroring; the marks appear in real time.
For years I’ve used as Wacom Intuos 4 graphics pad for erasing or drawing in Photoshop on the iMac but with the latest Apple operating system, Monterey, Wacom no longer support that model. Working on the iPad should be more flexible, once I’ve learned the ins and outs of it, as I can see the iMac screen on the iPad. The graphics pad was blank, so I got used to drawing on the desktop and seeing the results appear on the iMac.
Beech at Newmillerdam, drawn this morning with the constant accompaniment of cooing wood pigeons and the occasional clatter of a beech nut dropping from the still-green canopy.
Deep amongst the rhododendrons.
Old Rhododendron at Temple Newsam this morning.
In June 1977 the Silver Jubilee Days on the Queen’s Official Birthday marked the 25th anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth II on 6 February 1952. Architect and designer Margaret Casson organised a small exhibit ‘The Graven Image’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum and invited me to take part.
In the April of that year I headed to London and decided to give myself a bit of a challenge and I drew the interior of the Chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey.
I found a corner stall and settled down for a long session drawing with dip pen and Pelikan ink (the original drawing is in Pelikan Special Brown).
I hadn’t realised the significance of the rather elaborate end-of-the-row stall that I’d set myself up in.
Guides would come in and point to the ceiling, and their group would look up, suitably impressed; then the tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York (the couple who effectively brought the Middle Ages to a close by uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster) and finally, to bring things up to date, the guide would point to Prince Charles’ seat in the corner . . . the stall where I was sitting, scribbling away. I got some curious looks.
I’m struggling to remember the other items in the ‘Graven Image’ show which was in a corner of the entrance hall to the V&A but as I brought in my framed sketchbook spread, a stone carver staggered in with a large block with a beautifully carved inscription, a suitably graven image.
A couple of quick sketches from this weeks errands and appointments.
