Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
11 am: All the geese leave the pond and a flock of about 50 graze on the grassy slope.
After two hours I’d almost finished this spread in my sketchbook but the last Canada goose was drawn back home from a photograph on the big screen of the iMac. I’m pleased that it looks equally as messy – let me rephrase that ‘equally as spontaneous’ – as the sketches done on location, sitting by the outlet of the Thornes Park Fish Pond, sometimes under an umbrella as fine rain fell.
When I was drawing them in action from a distance yesterday the female pheasants seemed fairly plain – light tan with streaks – but drawing in close up from a photograph I took yesterday with a telephoto lens there’s lots of complexity in the pattern of the plumage.
Five female pheasants alternated from pecking around the feeders for spilt sunflower hearts and crumbs from the fat balls to drinking at the pond (and one unwisely tried to run across the surface of the water!) then going down to the veg beds to rest for a while.
One pheasant, feeding on its own at that time, suddenly burst into a ‘mad half hour’ routine, as my mum used to describe similar behaviour in a cat; darting around and flouncing its feathers as if it was being threatened by some invisible enemy. This lasted less than a minute, not a full half hour.
Canada geese at Newmillerdam this morning.
We’ve never needed to sow marigold seeds over the past few years as they seed themselves in the flower border and around the veg beds.
I’ve drawn one of the seed heads from different angles seen in close up through my magnifier desk lamp.
Drawn with my TWSBI Eco-T pen filled with De Atramentis sepia brown ink.
Male fern, knapweed and teasel from behind the pond and the meadow area. As I slowly walked down the garden, five female pheasants kept an eye on me but didn’t walk off under the hedge until I started snipping off a small teasel head in our little ‘meadow’ area.
It’s good to see the cascade between the Middle and Lower Lakes at Nostell in action again after years when the overflow was diverted because of problems with the dam.
Where no spaniel has gone before . . .
Happy birthday Henry.
A goose wing and duck skeleton drawn from the DK Eyewitness Guides, Bird and Skeleton.
Our friends Jill and John presented us with a pizza stone for Christmas. Admittedly our first attempt at using it was a bit of a disaster, so we’re still working on our technique for using the stone but at least it was crispy and it tasted good.
Most recipes suggest making enough dough for several pizzas, so I scaled it down here to make a pizza that comfortably fits on our new pizza stone.
I’m dipping into the Adobe Color online program to cook up and save colour schemes in a variety of ways. Here I’ve used the ‘Extract Theme’ option on one of my photographs from this morning and opted for a ‘Muted’ set of swatches.
As I write this it’s just one blue tit, one great tit and one nuthatch visiting the feeders. No sign of Bruce (who isn’t really a Persian but some equally fluffy variety).
Happy Christmas!
And talking of melting snowmen, it’s at this time of year that we remember Lucky. Actually he wasn’t so lucky as shortly after this photograph was taken he melted overnight leaving only a scarf, a hat, a carrot and a pile of loose change.
Photocredit: Meghan. Lucky’s stylists: Meghan, Millie and Evie. It has been estimated that Lucky’s perfect smile cost 12 pence in orthodontic work.