The last day of meteorological summer and I’m gathering my sketchbook drawings from the last three months together for an eBook.
I’m experimenting with the eBook option in Adobe InDesign, going for an iPad format. This gives me a more control over the way words and images are presented than I get with my regular blog.
Rather than use a regular typeface, I decided to use the carved lettering on one of the tombstones in Brodsworth Church as my starting point for a title logo.
In true Roman fashion the stone mason used the chiselled ‘V’ that you’d find on a Roman inscription to represent an upper case ‘U’, so I patched one together from the lower half of an ‘O’ and two different capital ‘I’s, keeping the slant he’d used one to fit it into the word ‘AETATIS’ (‘age’).
I imported my title logo into Adobe Illustrator and converted it into three tones using Image Trace, then took that back into Photoshop and replaced the three tones with colours derived from my cover image.
As I sat drawing this alder at the lakeside at Newmillerdam I felt something drop on my back. An alder cone? No. My shirt needed to go in the wash. Not sure who was responsible but I’m guessing that the wood pigeon is the first one that I need to rule out of my enquiries.
The man with the headphones and baseball cap is looking intently down at the stream as we enter Coxley Valley so he doesn’t see us, but his terrier does and gives a yap and a tug on his lead.
“Sorry! I’ve been looking at the crayfish,’ he explains, ‘I’ve seen 8 or 9 of them.’
I’m told that years ago there were crayfish, our native crayfish, the White-clawed, in the beck but with those conspicuous markings on the claws and the size of this one, about 6 inches long, I’m guessing that it’s the introduced American Signal Crayfish, Pacifastacus lenuisculus.
It’s the first we’ve seen, so our thanks to the observant dog walker for pointing it out to us. I’m wondering how the population of bullheads is doing in this stretch. I’ve heard reports of run off from a septic tank finding its way into the stream. Herons still fly down to one of the quieter bends in the stream.
After the dry spell we’ve had the stream was unusually low today.
In the late 1960s friend of mine perfected the art of tickling trout by lying on the bank and reaching down into the spots where they used to rest. I think it was the deeper undercut bank on the outside bend of the stream.
They’re restoring the old water mill at Newmillerdam, re-using the flagstone roof tiles, a job that involves a lot of work with power tools so I’ve made my way along the lakeside to draw this multi-stemmed alder.
It’s years since we bought any marigolds but they’re good at spreading their seeds around the garden. We’ll have plenty of seedlings next year at the top end of the border.
Also well able to seed itself around, the Welsh poppy. If it just spread by seed that would suit me but, unlike the marigold, it can establish itself as a perennial, building up deep dandelion-like tap roots and crowding out other flowers.
Sandstone cornerstone on the Boathouse, Newmillerdam
This heron, preening in a quiet corner at Adel Dam became watchful and alert when first a buzzard and then a sparrowhawk flew overhead.
In the waiting room at Specsavers and couldn’t draw anyone without them spotting me so it was back to drawing my hand in my A6 landscape sketchbook.
iPad drawing in Clip Studio Paint
I was in for micro suction wax removal so I’ve done a few sessions in preparation lying on the sofa with olive oil in my ear. That’s an awkward angle for drawing and I realise that the Paperlike screen protector has lost its texture after eight months of use so my Apple Pencil was slipping about as I drew, so it’s time to renew it using the spare sheet that came in the pack.
iPad drawing in Clip Studio Paint
I’ve never replaced the drawing tip of my Apple Pencil so that’s something worth trying to give more traction and feedback from the drawing surface.
Sketching the ducks, cormorant, Canada geese and in-between black-headed gulls, some juveniles, some adults beginning to lose their black heads. We were surprised how few – if any – there were at the black-headed gull colony at St Aidan’s last week. They’d been so noisy in the spring and early summer. Now I guess they’ve dispersed with a hundred or more – perhaps St Aidan’s birds – turning up at Newmillerdam, where they can perch on fallen willows on the quieter bank of the lake and keep an eye out for hand-outs on the war memorial side.
And yes, I might have drawn more of them if I hadn’t been sidetracked by a Danish cinnamon pastry at the Boathouse.
These coots have raised a brood at the nest site I drew last year near in the corner by the outlet of the lake.
Thanks to instant communication, I was able to message my photograph of the Danish pastry to the far end of the lake as a warning to Barbara that I’d got tied up on essential business, however I beat her and her brother back to the car park and had time to draw two of the chimney stacks of the Fox and Hounds, adding the colour later from a photograph.
At Wakefield Naturalists’ Society’s first annual dinner, Tuesday, 17 February 1874, at the Strafford Arms, overlooking the Bull Ring, vice-president Mr G. Porrit, F.L.S., was called on to propose a toast:
I am gratified at having to propose “Success to the Wakefield Naturalists’ Society.” I feel certain that all visitors and others in this room wish the president and officers of this society every success and prosperity (hear, hear). Whatever they do they do it well, and so long as they can keep their respected president with them there need be no fear so far as the success of the society is concerned (hear, hear). I have much pleasure in proposing “Success to the Naturalist Society,” and am sorry I cannot remain longer with you, as the train for Huddersfield is already due. Before I go, however, allow me to couple with the toast the name of the president, Alderman Wainwright.
The toast was drunk amid loud applause
The Wakefield Free Press, 21 February 1874. British Library Board, all rights reserved.
What could possibly go wrong?
Strafford Arms, detail of a drawing of the Strafford Arms, the Bull Ring, Wakefield, c. 1890, by Henry Clarke. Copyright, Wakefield Historical Society, 1977.
In 1862, on Monday and Tuesday, 2nd and 3rd June, the Society staged an exhibition at the Music Salon to raise funds for the formation of a library for the Society.
‘The Exhibition will consist of several thousands of objects in Natural History, comprising choice specimens in Ornithology, Entomology, Conchology, Botany, Mineralogy, Geology. The greater part of the objects have been taken within six miles of Wakefield.’
The Reason for the Failure
‘Beyond explanation’ – the 1883 Annual Report
But an exhibition staged by the Society in the 1880s proved over ambitious. Here’s a reaction from a former member of the Society who thought that he could do a better job himself:
In the interests of science I hope you will allow me to explain the reason for the failure of the Wakefield Naturalists’ Society, which the annual report in the papers say is beyond explanation . . . The late Exhibition met with only half-hearted sympathy from some of the members. Since the Council Chamber [Wakefield’s old Town Hall in Crown Court off Wood Street] was rented there has not been a single lecture or essay – in fact not one meeting of the members has been advertised in any way . . . Are not these facts a sufficient reason to account for the large proportion of the members withdrawing their names. Then dog in the manger like when they will not go forward with the proposed Museum, and I set to work to do what they say they have abandoned for the time being (having packed away their specimens at a public house) . . . What is the use of ten members at the annual meeting keeping in existence only the name of an association.’
G. H. Crowther, letter to the editor, Wakefield Free Press 29 September 1883
The Saw Hotel
But four years later the Society was back on its feet again.
Remember those specimens ‘packed away in a public house’?
WAKEFIELD NATURALISTS’ SOCIETY
THE SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL SESSION of this Society was opened with an EXHIBITION of NATURAL HISTORY OBJECTS, in the SOCIETY’S ROOMS, SAW HOTEL on Wednesday, October 5th, 1887.
The Exhibition will remain open TO-DAY from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and also on MONDAY, TUESDAY, and WEDNESDAY next, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.
The Public are invited. Admission Free.
WILLIAM RUSHFORTH
Honorary Secretary
Wakefield Free Press 08 October 1887
The Saw Hotel was on Westgate.
The good news is that the Wakefield Naturalists are still active today, with the next outdoor meeting a week on Sunday at Adel Nature Reserve: ‘super reserve for dragonflies and flowers which was closed throughout lockdown’.
The British Newspaper Archive provided jointly by the British Library and Findmypast. You can access the archive – and Findmypast – for free if you’re a member of Wakefield Libraries.
