Category: Art

Mossy Logs

26C 4.45 p.m.

THIS PILE of moss-covered Buddleia logs and darker crab apple branches looks rather autumnal and I expect that a month from today we really will be seeing summer fading away fast. During the 3 or 4 hours that I’ve been drawing, a male Gatekeeper butterfly has been patrolling this north-facing side of the hedge. I’m surrounded by House Sparrows; it sounds as if there are dozens of them continuously calling and chattering to each other.

After a week when we’ve been doing a lot of work on the house and the garden, I felt the need to settle into a proper drawing. What could be more inviting to draw than a pile of mossy logs? – They don’t move about and, as it is an overcast afternoon, the light is steady. What could be easier to draw?

It proves to be an absorbing subject (I won’t say a ‘difficult subject’ because whenever I get into a drawing everything seems difficult to some extent!) –  because of all those interlocking shapes and criss-crossing stems. Drawing something like this, looking into its details, is like getting lost in the jungle; you find yourself repeatedly losing your way.

I might be drawing ‘just’ a pile of logs, but it doesn’t feel like that. There are elements of landscape, botany too of course, but I also I find myself half-thinking of the shape of a crocodile’s head, or of fishlike shapes as I draw.

Adding watercolour to my pen and ink drawing isn’t as simple as ‘colouring in’. To get a sense of depth I need to establish a tone for every detail. It’s only when almost every scrap of white paper has disappeared that the tonal arrangement of the log pile becomes apparent in the drawing.

I started adding a wash of neutral tint to most of the darker areas but this has resulted in a colour key which is noticeably cooler when I compare it with the log pile itself. I’ve added wash of yellow ochre with a touch of scarlet lake to try and correct this but I should have started with a brownish, rather than a greyish, tonal wash.

It feels good to have the time – a whole afternoon – to get involved in drawing again.

Visual Aids

IT’S JUST as well that I’ve whittled down my art materials to the bare essentials because I often carry these three pairs of glasses in my bag; varifocal Polaroid sunglasses, reading glasses and clear varifocals. Light-sensitive varifocals would have lessened my load but Polaroid appealed to me as it’s so successful in cutting down on glare. I felt that they would be useful for looking down into ponds. As they cut down on glare, they don’t need to be quite as dark as regular sunglasses, which should be helpful when I’m using watercolours.

Moriarty

“You have probably never heard of Professor Moriarty?” said [Holmes].

“Never.”

“Aye, there’s the genius and the wonder of the thing!” he cried. “The man pervades London, and no one has heard of him. That’s what puts him on a pinnacle in the records of crime. I tell you, Watson, in all seriousness, that if I could beat that man, if I could free society of him, I should feel that my own career had reached its summit, and I should be prepared to turn to some more placid line in life.”

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Final Problem

THE NEXT plate that I’ve come to in my drawings from Sidney Paget’s illustrations to Sherlock Holmes is his portrait of the ‘Napoleon of Crime’, Professor Moriarty.

Last month I drew on the ledge at the Reichenbach Falls which features in Paget’s illustration ‘The Death of Sherlock Holmes’. The engraving is signed, in block capitals ‘SIDNEY PAGET, 1893’. The misty gothic background to the duel is a reasonably accurate depiction of the Falls themselves.

Drawing from the originals makes me appreciate Paget’s skill as an illustrator and his lasting contribution to our image of Holmes.

Moriarty reminds me of Max Wall (1908-1990), in his variety turn as the manically musical Professor Wallofski.

Sketching Sherlock

RETURNING TO my Sherlock Holmes book project after an inspiring visit to the Reichenbach Falls, I’ve decided to get back into the swing of things with some drawing rather than with writing or research.

Previously I’ve been thinking of illustrating Sherlock in black and white but I’m starting to realise that colour will make the book more attractive and will help me capture the mood of the story that I’m telling.

As with so many books and screen versions of Holmes, my starting point is the original illustrations by Sidney Paget that appeared in The Strand Magazine. This doesn’t entirely limit me to black and white; The Complete Facsimile Edition, published in 2006, also includes 15 colour plates.

The colour is muted in my first drawings, after Paget’s illustration for The Adventure of Silver Blaze, as Watson and Holmes Holmes are dressed for a day at the races. In place of his trademark deerstalker hat Holmes, like Watson, has gone for a top hat.

A small detail; Holmes wears brown leather gloves, while Watson’s are grey.

Yellow Loosestrife

Despite  its name, which might be a mistranslation of the Greek, this member of the primrose family isn’t renowned for its calming properties. Culpeper recommends it for wounds, sore-throats and as a fly and gnat repellent.

A Bear at the Hepworth

SOMEWHERE DEEP in the vaults of the new Hepworth Gallery by the river in Wakefield, in the reserve collections, there’s one of my paintings; a 6ft 6 x 4ft acrylic on canvas of Waterton’s World, along with a sketchbook of the working drawings that I made for it. These were of South American birds collected by the naturalist Charles Waterton between 1812 and 1824. The sketchbook is handmade; a large-format section-sewn hardback filled with Saunders hot-pressed paper. It proved too cumbersome for everyday use and I only ever filled a quarter of the pages. I must pop in to the Hepworth and draw something special in it some day!

My painting has yet to make it into the public galleries but this cuddly bear and the bear tile, the work of our talented neighbour Alice, aged 6, have been exhibited at the Hepworth as part of a show of work by local children. An artist came into her school to work with them.

Alice tells us that her favourite modelling clay creation is this cheerful hedghog (right) but she explains that as it was made more recently it wasn’t included in the show.

Finding a battered butterfly in the garden, she used her watercolours for this large painting which she kindly presented to us.

Four Feathers

I PICKED up these crow feathers in a pasture as we walked from Hope to Castleton on Wednesday. I’ve drawn them in dip pen using Winsor and Newton black Indian ink but the wash is dilute Chung Hwa Chinese Ink (see Dark Materials, 11 March 2006) which I keep ready-mixed in four different strengths from pale to dark. I’ve used the two palest shades here. I used these pre-mixed washes regularly when working on my black and white sketchbook published as High Peak Drifter (Willow Island Editions, 2006).

For this gull feather, which I picked up when I drew at the pond at Dewsbury hospital on Tuesday, I used Winsor and Newton Peat Brown ink with pen and wash.

I find feathers quite a challenge to draw because of the gentle curves of the outline and quill and all the curving parallel lines of the barbs. I admit to putting this feather on my desk with the quill curving up in the middle because I thought I’d find it more difficult to draw it the other way up, against the natural curve that a pen makes as you rotate your hand at the wrist.

It would be good practice for me to keep picking up feathers and drawing them until I get a feel for them.

Absent Feathered Friends

‘. . . its flesh is good and wholesome eating. It is a silly simple bird, as may very well be supposed from its figure, and is very easily taken. Three or four dodos are enough to dine a hundred men.’

‘The Auk, which breeds on the islands of St Kilda, chiefly differs from the penguin in size and colour : it is smaller than a duck ; and the whole of the breast and belly, as far as the middle of the throat, is white’

Oliver Goldsmith, History of the Earth, 1774

In his footnotes for the 1832 edition Captain Thomas Brown describes the dodo as extinct but says of the Great Auk that it ‘inhabits Europe and America ; is three feet in length ; is very timid ; it has not the power of flying ; its food is chiefly fishes.’

The last Great Auk was killed in June 1844 on Eldey Island, Iceland.

Mystery Bird

Engraving by R. Scott, 1832.

Reading the chapter on Penguins in Goldsmith, it’s surprising that they have escaped extinction: ‘Our sailors . . . give these birds the very homely, but expressive, name of arse-feet.

‘ . . . They have stood to be shot at in flocks, without offering to move, in silent wonder, till every one of their number has been destroyed.’

But what’s that bird standing between the Rockhopper and the Patagonian Penguin? Is that another extinct sea-bird? The down-curved bill is curious, more like a curlew’s, and, in the context of penguins and guillemots, the lack of webbing between the toes looks distinctly odd.

I think that what has happened here is that the artist has been given a cabinet skin of a kiwi, Apteryx, which wouldn’t give a true impression of the shape of the bird and he’s found it appropriate to depict it amongst the southern hemisphere penguins. I’ve yet to find Goldsmith’s description of the bird because neither ‘kiwi’ or ‘Apteryx’ appear in the index of History of the Earth.

King Edward and his Merry Men

In my Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire I follow the career of 14th century Robert Hode of Wakefield so Prince John and Richard the Lionheart are long gone but Edward II and his rival Earls (and rival lords of the manor of Wakefield) John de Warenne and Thomas of Lancaster provide a suitably dramatic and violent context. Their rivalry culminated in the Battle of Boroughbridge after which many men were declared outlaws.

I enjoyed illustrating the knockabout Little Gest of Robin Hood but I felt quite emotional when it came to the humiliation, mock-trial and execution of Thomas of Lancaster at his own castle at Pontefract. Here I was trying to imaginatively recreate real events which happened to a real, not a semi-mythical, person in a local town that I’ve long been familiar with.

Whatever his faults Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. No wonder he was soon hailed as a saint!

Artwork from ‘Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire’, Willow Island Editions, ISBN 978-1-902467-19-1, from my display ‘A long, drawn out process . . .’ exhibited at the Robin Hood Scholars’ Conference at Beverley, 10 July 2011.

Forest Folk

The outlaws were the least of my worries; in Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire, I had two earls, a king, a pinder, several Knights Hospitaller, assorted peasants and, not least, a Sheriff to design and draw.

George-a-Green
The Potter
Mak and Gill
Shepherd, Wakefield Mystery Plays
The Other Robin Hood
Knights of St John
Knights Hospitaller
Richard de Heya
Henry de Faucumberg
Stealing Wood
Burgess Court
Robin’s Maidservant

Artwork from ‘Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire’, Willow Island Editions, ISBN 978-1-902467-19-1, from my display ‘A long, drawn out process . . .’ exhibited at the Robin Hood Scholars’ Conference at Beverley, 10 July 2011.

Robin and Friends

In the comic strip section of my Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire, I needed to make Robin instantly recognisable in every one of dozens of two inch square frames. I wanted to get away from the traditional Robin Hood hat, so I went for the medieval equivalent of a trilby!

Robin Hood
Robin Hood goes Fishing
Robin the Butcher
Adam Hood
Robin Hood’s Wind
The Two Robins
Robin Hood’s Well
Outlaws
Barnsdale
Sorrowful Knight
The Merry Men
Robin and Deer

Artwork from ‘Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire’, Willow Island Editions, ISBN 978-1-902467-19-1, from my display ‘A long, drawn out process . . .’ exhibited at the Robin Hood Scholars’ Conference at Beverley, 10 July 2011.

Robin Hood: a walk in Barnsdale Forest

There were 6 picture maps to draw for the 19 miles of my Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire along with two short town trails, plus local views and historical details.

I love the maps in Tolkien and The Wind in the Willows and my aim is to try to make the places look delightful enough for my readers to feel they’d like to walk there but accurate enough for them to follow the directions in the text without the need for an Ordnance Survey map (although I do recommend people take one with them in case there are unexpected footpath closures or if they decide to stray off the route).

Robin Hood’s Yorkshire

Arms of the House of Lancaster, built into a wall near Pontefract Castle
Little John’s Well
Robin Hood’s Well
St Mary Magdelene, Campsall
St Mary’s Abbey, York
Robin Hood’s Tower, York
Brockadale Map
Rough for Brockadale Map

Artwork from ‘Walks in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire’, Willow Island Editions, ISBN 978-1-902467-19-1, from my display ‘A long, drawn out process . . .’ exhibited at the Robin Hood Scholars’ Conference at Beverley, 10 July 2011.