Category: Drawing

Kestrel Preening

RSPB St Aidans, 12.30 pm, Tuesday: A kestrel lands on the track ahead of us, apparently for a brief bathe in a puddle although by the time I get my binoculars on it, it’s dust-bathing then going through its preening routine for a few minutes.

It seems very relaxed about us standing just twenty yards from it. We chat with a bird watcher as we get back to the centre:

“Was it streaky?” he asks “It’d be a juvenile, they’re more trusting of people, and like all juveniles, they’ll sometimes do silly things.”

Gatekeeper

A male gatekeeper flutters past us, heads for the long grasses alongside the track and immediately gets stuck in, to us, invisible strands of a spider’s web. I feel that I ought to give it a second chance, so I gently extricate it. Free of any strands of silk, I can’t understand why it doesn’t fly off, then I notice that, hidden beneath its left wing, a spider has it firmly in its grasp.

I replace the pair amongst the grasses, leaving the spider to finish its lunch undisturbed.

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Six-spot Burnet

A RSPB St Aidan’s this morning: volunteer wardens Tom and Evelyn, rivers MEET cafe crafter Miss B, moorhen footprints and a six-spot burnet on knapweed.

We also saw a drake common scoter, spoonbill, bittern, a juvenile kestrel dustbathing and preening and a gatekeeper blundering into a web amongst the grasses and being instantly caught by a spider.

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Bag and Brush

brush

Barbara’s mum and her friend used to go into town on the access bus on a Friday morning and she’d often come back with a brush. This bannister brush from Wilko’s was a bit of a bargain at £1.49.

camera bag

I drew the brush and my camera bag in Procreate on the iPad, using Procreate’s Technical Pen.

Camera and Kit Lens

camera

Portraits, landscapes, nature, still life, movement and street photography . . . I feel that I’m got to know my Olympus DSLR and its 14-42mm kit lens a whole lot better in the past week.

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Jenny

Jenny

Jenny, natural history illustrator, drawing by our pond. She recently completed a commission to illustrate an information board about the wildlife at a pond on a nature reserve in West Sussex.

Jenny's drawing
Jenny’s drawing of the vegetation around our pond

She started on John Norris Wood’s natural history illustration course at the Royal College of Art a year after I left, in 1976 and graduated in 1979, focussing on the Chelsea Physic Garden, it’s history and plants.

Lunch by the Swale

River Swale

My Letts School-Boys Diary, Friday, 16th July 1965:

Trip. Wore jeans and pullover. Set off 9.10 got to Richmond at 10.45. Had lunch over looking Swale. Went round castle. Guide (1/-) got postcard of Richard III. Trip in Dales made 3 miles longer (?) because of road blockage. Developed film

diary and guide book
The guide book, my diary and the original negatives. That’s probably spilt developer on the envelope!
Original photograph
Original photograph

Perhaps after such a long day I should have left developing the film until later but despite the botched job, I’m pleased 58 years later, to have rescued some images from the negatives.

I haven’t visited the castle since, so I think that it’s time to re-read the guidebook and take another look.

castle

My friend Stefaniw appears, slightly solarised, in one of the photographs. We were in the third form and my diary records that the previous day our O-level subjects were decided:

Am taking Art and Physics with Chemistry. I did seascape in art. Read Beowulf. Gave in Maths and Eng. books.

Stef persuaded Mr Axford to let him take all three sciences.

Did Triffids.

Watched Matterhorn Anniversary Climb, M. from U.N.C.L.E

Thursday 15th July 1965
Castle ruins
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A Thank you to the Hospice

Hospice staff card

From the Prince of Wales Hospice website, pwh.org.uk:

Local illustrator gives a bespoke new design to our thank you cards

new cards

Thursday, 22 June 2023

We first came across Richard Bell’s artistic talent when he sent in a hand drawn illustrated card, thanking staff for the care provided to his brother in law, John. The card was an illustration about some of the hospice team Richard and his wife, Barbara met when they visited John in our Hospice. The card also included a drawing about one of John’s great moments in the Hospice, when he was visited by two star players of Featherstone Rovers on the ward.

Hospice card
early rough
Early rough

Richard wrote: “Thank you for all that you did for John and all that you did to make us feel welcome – we’re so grateful.”

We were blown away by the level of detail Richard had used in his illustrations and we asked Richard if he wanted to design our new thank you cards. Fortunately, he kindly agreed to illustrate them for us and what a fantastic job he has done!

My rough for the staff card
Later rough

One of the new designs show a roundup of hospice staff, Richard explained: “I was aiming for a fairly generic version of the hospice staff but inevitably the individual characters keep asserting themselves.” The other thank you card design shows beautifully the Hospice building, gardens and surrounding area.
Emma Dunnill, Legacy and In Memory Fundraiser said: “Richard’s attention to detail is fantastic and we think our supporters will love the bespoke designs. We can’t wait to start sending out these well-deserved thank you cards.”

You can see more of Richard’s work on his website http://wildyorkshire.blog/ where he has also shared illustrations of the Hospice gardens from his visits.

article

Link

The Prince of Wales Hospice, Pontefract

John meets Featherstone Rovers: my original thank you card to the Hospice

Wood Pigeons

spurge and woodland sketches

These sketches from the hospital and the one of the wood were drawn with one of my regular fountain pens, the TWSBI Eco T.

pigeons sketches

But I’ve gone back to a fibre tip for these wood pigeons and sparrows in the back garden.

pigeons and art bag

These were drawn with a Mitsubishi uni pin 0.3 fine line, which has water and fade proof pigment ink.

pigeon, sparrow and foxglove