Sketches from Whitby and from ‘Yorkshire’s Food Capital’, Malton. Tone added in Photoshop.
Whitby
Category: Drawing
The View from the Terrace
This morning our pond had frozen over but a month from today the days will start getting longer.
On the little roof terrace at the Boathouse Cafe, Newmillerdam, black-headed gulls glide past the castellated balustrade a few feet away from me at eye level, a fluid, effortlessly elegant flight. A grebe preens out on the lake, a male goosander swims by, crisply black and white in the low winter sun.
A coot calls tetchily, mallards quack and the smell of fresh coffee drifts up from the kitchen below.
S’mores Kronut
Drawing the dogs and trying the s’mores kronut, a cross between a croissant and a donut, at the ØL cafe in Horbury this morning.
The dogs took so much interest in their surroundings that they soon wound their leads around table legs and chair legs.
Rowan
I’ve done so much black and white work recently that I thought it was time to return to base and go back to brown Lamy pen and my Bijou watercolours to draw this rowan leaf from the front garden. Unfortunately my Pentel Water Brush is all but clogged up now, so the watercolour wash is a bit limited.
Pots of Pens
Mustard pot, yogurt container and treacle tins on my shelf in the studio.
Stump Fungus
When you look closely at this fungus growing on a stump by the lake at Newmillerdam you can see that the cap is dotted with scales and the stem looks rather shaggy.
The nearest that I can get to it in the field guide is honey fungus, but I hadn’t realised that the stems could be so shaggy.
On a felled log, water had gathered in a hole in the bark, creating a temporary habitat.
On our errands this afternoon, I drew one of the carved heads on one of the former banks in Ossett and the door in the Carnegie Free Library in Horbury.
Water Mug
The Falcon Houseware enamel mug that I use when I’m painting watercolours or ink washes in the studio. The pieces of timber are offcuts from when we constructed the compost bins in the spring.
Drawn with a dip pen and Rohrer’s indian ink, coloured in Photoshop using a limited range of greys, mainly 25%, 50% and 75%, with a few darker shadows and highlights.
Booster Folk
“I thought you were writing us a cheque,” quipped the nurse at the Covid Vaccination Centre.
“We’re not allowed to take photographs – but it said nothing about sketching!”
As with my first two Covid vaccinations, I’ve had no bad reaction. Except that I’ve decided not to have a glass of red wine at the weekend for a couple of weeks. Tough.
And I remembered not to go for a glass of Sicilian Nero d’Avola at Pizza Express at lunch time. This is going to be a long two weeks.
High Street
Auckland’s the opticians on Horbury High Street this morning, shoes and a section of Blue John, a purple-banded fluorite mineral from an inlaid table top at the Rose Cottage Tea Rooms, Castleton, on Sunday. Blue John was, and still is, mined just a mile further up the Hope Valley, from the caverns around Mam Tor.
Chimney Pots
We missed out on Newmillerdam last week as it was raining heavily but today it’s looking good with plenty of autumn colour, however I’m still experimenting with pen and ink so I’ve focussed on these Victorian chimney pots and a stone wall by a horse chestnut tree.
