Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
11 am: All the geese leave the pond and a flock of about 50 graze on the grassy slope.
After two hours I’d almost finished this spread in my sketchbook but the last Canada goose was drawn back home from a photograph on the big screen of the iMac. I’m pleased that it looks equally as messy – let me rephrase that ‘equally as spontaneous’ – as the sketches done on location, sitting by the outlet of the Thornes Park Fish Pond, sometimes under an umbrella as fine rain fell.
When I was drawing them in action from a distance yesterday the female pheasants seemed fairly plain – light tan with streaks – but drawing in close up from a photograph I took yesterday with a telephoto lens there’s lots of complexity in the pattern of the plumage.
Five female pheasants alternated from pecking around the feeders for spilt sunflower hearts and crumbs from the fat balls to drinking at the pond (and one unwisely tried to run across the surface of the water!) then going down to the veg beds to rest for a while.
One pheasant, feeding on its own at that time, suddenly burst into a ‘mad half hour’ routine, as my mum used to describe similar behaviour in a cat; darting around and flouncing its feathers as if it was being threatened by some invisible enemy. This lasted less than a minute, not a full half hour.
Canada geese at Newmillerdam this morning.
We’ve never needed to sow marigold seeds over the past few years as they seed themselves in the flower border and around the veg beds.
I’ve drawn one of the seed heads from different angles seen in close up through my magnifier desk lamp.
Drawn with my TWSBI Eco-T pen filled with De Atramentis sepia brown ink.
Male fern, knapweed and teasel from behind the pond and the meadow area. As I slowly walked down the garden, five female pheasants kept an eye on me but didn’t walk off under the hedge until I started snipping off a small teasel head in our little ‘meadow’ area.
It’s good to see the cascade between the Middle and Lower Lakes at Nostell in action again after years when the overflow was diverted because of problems with the dam.
A goose wing and duck skeleton drawn from the DK Eyewitness Guides, Bird and Skeleton.
28th December 1972: ‘Why doesn’t he clear those books away instead of wasting his time drawing them?’ Well I’m in a rather an unsettled state at the moment and my other shelf unit is down in London.
If you read this picture carefully you might find hidden in it; clock from Horbury station, an unfinished model of a village built on a rock which I started before O-levels and a Victorian writing box which Grandma Bell gave us when they moved house.
Today I date every drawing in my sketchbook, because it’s such a help when I’m trying to track down a drawing later. Apart from references to Christmas and the new year I wasn’t so consistent at that time.
But I did mention in my diary that I ‘did a sketch in the bedroom’ on Thursday, 28 December 1972. Probably more details than you need here! Even so, you may be wondering what I dreamt about that night?
What do you mean ‘No!’?!
Well, I recorded it, so here it is anyway . . .
Seed heads of tansy, from a rough verge in Ossett and yarrow from a grassy area at Newmillerdam.
On Monday morning wisps of thin vapour blew over the surface of the ice. There was a hollow clacking as a child three chunks of ice and rock onto the frozen surface of the lake.
One of a family of four swans touching down at the far side of the overshot the landing site and went skimming along the watery surface of the ice. A drake mallard landing on ice near the open area by the war memorial did something similar but managed to do an about turn and slid back towards the other ducks he’d landed with.
I like that these trainers are made from recycled materials and, as the name suggests they’re light and flexible. Amazingly they’re available in my size: 13, a size that other manufacturers seem to have more or less given up on.
The only problem is that as they’ve got such a minimal toebox they seem to be crushing one particular toenail – the second largest – on my right foot. Possibly there’s a bit of a crease in the uppers when I lace them up. I can’t say for definite but I first noticed that I had a bruised and broken nail after walking a few miles in them.
After that I wore them just for around town or going out for a meal, but so often after I’ve worn them I notice it’s happened again. Perhaps just running up the stairs can be enough to break the nail.
Vivobarefoot do a 100-day trial, so you can return them for a full refund if you have any problems, however I liked these so much that I’ve hung on to them for far longer than that, so these will be going to their Take Back Programme. Last year they ‘received 2,600 pairs of old Vivos, which were refurbished for resale or saved from landfill’.