Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
This morning we finished the village scene for this year’s pantomime, Cinderella, and this afternoon we’ve blocked in the forest, on the reverse side of the backdrop. I had no fewer than seven helpers – members of the cast and their mums – filling in the outlines for me.
The flat, rounded shapes remind me of Clarice Cliff designs, but we’ll add a bit of shading and outline tomorrow morning.
Dress rehearsal is tomorrow at two, but I’m sure we’ll be finished by then.
On the lane between Notton and Woolley, a kestrel sits, hunched and huddled, in a roadside tree.
At Woolley Edge, there’s a flash of colour as a jay gets up from a roadside verge. Oak trees grow along the sandstone ridge here, so perhaps it was burying, or retrieving, an acorn.
As we reach the open higher ground at Bretton roundabout, we pass a buzzard sitting on a fence-post at the edge of the road.
As we get nearer to Flockton, we see a second kestrel, hovering over the field by the road.
Looking at our route on the original Ordnance Survey map from the 1800s, I’m surprised to see what a busy landscape this was, with its sandstone quarries, gravel pits and a brick kiln where George Lane meets the Wakefield to Barnsley road.
Just north of the gravel pit there are kennels and, more exotically, three-quarters of a mile to the northeast, there’s a Menagerie, which was part of the Chevet Hall estate.
An osier bed, near the top right corner of my map, would have produced the flexible whips of willow needed for basketmaking.
The armchair, at Barbara’s brother John’s, makes a laid-back still life subject with its generous proportions and its rumpled cushions.
His Sony stereo, with its antenna, eye-like twin knobs and gaping mouth, looks like the head of a robot from an animated movie.
John’s living room even gives me a chance to sketch some botanical details; there’s a Peace Lily, Spathiphyllum, on the table by the window.
The cluster of small conical flowers, arranged spirally around the spadix appear to be all female.
The Peace Lily, also known as the Sail Plant, is a member of the Araceae family, the Arums, members of which are mainly tropical. There are only two British species: Cuckoo-pint and Sweet-flag.
Sitting in the dentist’s waiting room, looking up Queen Street, I’m attempting to draw the spire of St Peter and St Leonard’s Church, Horbury.
The proportions are so subtle; the tower’s structure reminds me of a four-stage Saturn rocket, about to soar skywards but it might so easily, with the addition of an extra foot or so of girth, start to appear crushingly earthbound or, conversely, if too slender, become too spindly and emaciated to inspire confidence.
It’s the same with the individual pillars: there’s such a slim ‘Goldilocks zone’ between undernourished and elephantine. I think that he got it just right.
The architect, John Carr, (1723-1807), started his career working the stone in local quarries. As far as I know, he never had any formal training in architecture, nor did he ever make the Grand Tour, to absorb the classical influence of Italy but as bridge surveyor to the West Riding of Yorkshire, he had an eye for structure.
I walked past the church every day when I attended St Peter’s Junior School, which in those days stood close to where the dentist’s stands today. As I looked up at that wedding cake of a spire, so unlike anything else in Horbury, I’d imagine the kind of character that might be living in there, in the pilastered penthouse apartment above the rusticated clock section. Shutters and a the mini-balcony made me think of Spain or Mexico, so a mantillared señorita or a caballero.
The rotunda of columns could be a home for a minor Greek deity.
‘Sometimes working in a different medium can add that all-important spark of excitement’, writes Paul Talbot-Greaves in Collins 30 minute Landscapes in Watercolour. As a new year refresher, I’m trying out one of his half-hour demos.
I’m stepping out of my comfort zone because my habitual way of working is to start with a pen and ink drawing, then add a wash of colour but here, after a minimal pencil outline, it’s blocks of colour first and any suggestion of detail, such as the pattern of stones, is left until you add the final touches.
I’ve noticed recently that my brushes are looking the worse for wear, so before starting I bought two sable brushes.
I’m interested in Talbot-Greaves’ choice of colours; I try and keep things simple by sticking to a couple of versions of each of the primaries in the pocket-sized watercolour box that I use on my travels but he suggests some useful shortcuts:
“There are a number of ready-mixed colour, such as Raw Sienna, Sap Green and French Ultramarine, which have been developed to make colour selection easier for the artist. Each one is like a shortcut to a popular colour that is found in the landscape – for example, Sap Green can be used to paint grass, Cobalt Blue is a good match for sky blue, and Cadmium Red is ideal for suggesting the warm glow of a sunset.”
The colours in my version of the demo aren’t as subtle as they are in the book and I think that could be due to having a brighter, yellower version of Sap Green in my range of watercolours and having to use Lemon Yellow and Indian Red as substitutes for two of his recommended colours: Naples Yellow and Light Red.
For the purpose of the exercise, all the colours are mixed on the paper, blended into each other, as you paint, not mixed in the palette beforehand. I need more practice at this; the wash-backs in the sky and on the road are caused by adding a bit too much water to my wash as I blended it with a still damp colour on the page.
I’ve learned a lot from trying another approach and look forward to trying another of the 30 minute demos in the book.
Links
Collins 30 minute Landscapes in Watercolour is currently out of print.
A few sketches from our visits to Barbara’s brother who is currently in the stroke unit in the Brontë Tower, Dewsbury Hospital.
The parlour palm sits in a corner by the piano in the dining room.
11 a.m.: Looking WSW from the Brontë Tower. Mist obscures the moor tops, Castle Hill showing as a misty outline.
Lenny is a tall for his age two-year old. The only time that he really settles down is when he stands to eat some ice cream but he trots off between spoonfuls so my sketch is as much reconstruction as observation.
Would he recognise himself?
‘Who’s that?’ asks his mum, showing him my sketch.
‘Lenny’, he replies immediately.
Florence, Lenny’s younger sister, is still too young to form such a clear sense of self. Her mum tell’s us that there’s a theory that a young baby doesn’t conceive that there is a separation between itself and its mother.
Facial recognition is something that humans are good at from an early age but we can be a bit too keen to spot faces. An etcher I know asks her friends to check her proofs for any rogue faces that might have popped up in her foliage, stonework and clouds before she commits to printing the finished version.
I can even spot a face in Barbara’s homemade mince pies . . .
. . . these two crusty old characters remind me of Statler and Waldorf on The Muppet Show.
The fruit of the Rhododendron is a woody capsule which splits to release small seeds which can remain viable in the ground for years.
This fruit had fallen from one of the Rhododendron bushes by the Middle Lake at Nostell Priory.
A Victorian visitor gives us a description of Nostell Park in its Victorian heyday:
“The noble avenue of elms, stretching like giant sentries almost as far as the eye can reach from the house, the green sward dotted here and there with herds of deer ; the waterfall, its silvery cascade gleaming brightly through a network of green ; the lake, with its ripple dancing in the sunlight, and bordered by the rhododendrons, varying in shade from deep red to pale pink and white,—all went to make a collection of pictures it would be difficult to equal.”
Leeds Mercury, 22 June, 1888
Our plans for the weekend are put on hold as we head for the hospital to visit a relative (he’s doing much better now). I’ve spent many hours waiting in hospitals but, as usual, I’ve brought my sketchbook and pen with me and this time a tiny pack of crayons. They’re a very limited range, just seven colours, but working out how to represent the range of colours reflected and refracted in the bottle of Harrogate Spa water takes my mind off a worrying situation.
It so good to be back in my studio and working again. I’ve just e-mailed my latest Wild Yorkshire nature diary off to the Dalesman, so it’s high time that I caught up with this online diary, which provides most of the raw material for my Dalesman articles.
It’s a month since my studio floor was taken up but there’s been a lot of work for me varnishing the new tongued and grooved timber floor and putting back my plan chest, art materials and book stock just as I’d like them (and there’s been even more work setting up our new kitchen in the room below, which is looking great).
Improvements in my studio include these four Ikea Blecka hooks (above) for my small, medium and large art bags, which are hanging there ready for me to grab when I set off on a small, medium or large adventure, each complete with a selection of art materials and an A6, A5 or a square of the narrow side of A4 (that’s 8 x 8 inches) Pink Pig sketchbook. Like Goldilocks, I tend to feel that the middle sized bag is ‘just right’.
On the fourth hook my new digital SLR is hanging, plus a camera bag holding my new macro and telephoto lens. It’s an Olympus OM-D E-M10II which has great possibilities for nature photography. I sold my trusty pocket-sized Olympus Tough muji on e-Bay and I’m missing it already but I’m holding off buying the latest Tough to replace it as I want to get thoroughly familiar with my digital SLR.
The drawing is in bamboo pen using Winsor & Newton black Indian ink. I wouldn’t pack this combination in my art bags as the ink, where it has formed a blotty pool, takes days to dry.