Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
After thinking it over for several years, I’ve finally got around to adding a Paperlike screen protector to my iPad Pro.
As you can see from my before and after photographs, the matt finish film hasn’t made my Clip Studio Paint app any less clear but I find the surface more sympathetic for drawing with my Apple Pencil on than the glass screen of the iPad.
Here’s my first Procreate sketch, drawn with one of Paperlike’s free brushes for Procreate from a collection designed by Filip Zywica.
After drawing so many cartoons, I wanted to draw from life for a change, so I picked up a few dry leaves which had blown into the corner by the front door.
As Ralph has his birthday on the run-up to Christmas, I’ve gone for a combined advent/birthday card this year.
Surprises include, in box no. 4, my copy of a Beano-inspired portrait of Ralph’s mum, Abby, drawn by his sister Ivy.
The traditional Selfridges hamper was a Christmas box from work for Ralph’s dad, James. Since the family moved a year ago, Ralph has developed a habit of trying out boxes for size, a human jack-in-a-box.
Drawn at Diana’s this afternoon, sadly P.C. the black cat is no longer with us, as I usually drew him when we visited.
A favourite spot for Horbury’s feral pigeons to gather is the Co-op roof.
I drew these in my pocket-sized sketchbook and rearranged them in Photoshop before adding the tones in Fresco on my iPad Pro, using an Apple Pencil.
With our Christmas finally sorted, it’s time for one our wilder walks around the reservoir at Langsett.
A stable mass of high pressure is starting to establish itself over Britain, forcing the jet stream into an Ω (omega)-shaped diversion right around it to the north.
This morning, the Pennine watershed marks the division between air masses and we can see a large grey cloud hanging over Manchester and rolling over the moor tops to envelop the Holme Moss transmitter but it doesn’t make any progress towards us.
Recent sketches from my 125×90 mm Hahnemühle D&S sketchbook. Tones added in Photoshop.
A jay screeches from up in the trees as I climb the steps to the Arboretum at Newmillerdam but woodland birds aren’t much in evidence as I walk briskly along, just the odd blue tit and great tit up in the branches and, more conspicuously, robins which are more on my level.
As a change from making a circuit of the lake, I’m heading up to the top end of the woods, towards the former railway cutting, where I haven’t been for years.
The original track between the drystone wall and the shelter belt of poplars gets steadily more overgrown with brambles as I walk along it before switching to the newer track alongside the Arboretum.
Reminding me of a scene from the Everglades, three cormorants, including a brown juvenile with a patch of white on its breast, sit on the twisting branches of a dead tree which rises from the shallows on a quieter stretch of the lake shore. A fourth cormorant splashes about near to them, going through a vigorous bathing routine.
It was a close thing, setting up The Night before Christmas display the Redbox Gallery’s telephone box on Queen Street, Horbury, this morning but with a few adjustments we were able to fit the sleeping dog, cat and mouse on the wedge-shaped space by the hearth.
The Christmas stockings that Barbara ran up at short notice work well with knitted characters from her late – and much missed – mum, Betty.
We were tweaking and trying to plan for every hidden snag we might meet but it all went smoothly, thanks to the help of Graham Roberts of Horbury Civic Society (who run the Redbox Gallery project) and Sarah Town who brought along the paper chains and baubles made by the local Brownies.
We particularly liked the clothes peg/paper doily doll angel they made which presides over the whole affair hanging in the crowded airspace amongst the paper chains.
The curtains were drawn but the Ektorp sofa was real.
With apologies to Spike Milligan and Ikea. And a shout out for Plumbs, who supplied the curtains.