Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
My friend John Gardner, celebrating his birthday today, has built up an impressive list by running an ultra-violet light moth trap in his garden. Hopefully these reprobates haven’t turned up.
Moths have a bad name in my brother Bill’s childhood writing. He wrote this damming indictment aged six and it’s survived in a school exercise book from his infant school days.
I found it slightly alarming how easily I slipped into the sleazy slang of these Teenage Tuna Tearaways. Ivy’s is the first ever child’s birthday card to have been given a PG – ‘may include unsuitable dialogue’ – rating.
MAUNDER, talk incoherently, or in a low tone, grumblingly. “What are teh maundrin thear abaht?”
Wakefield Words, William Stott Banks, 1865
A Clip Studio Paint animation of a page from my illustrated version of William Stott Banks Wakefield Words, A List of Provencial Words in use at Wakefield in Yorkshire 1865.
Wakefield Words, paperback, available post free in the UK from Willow Island Editions.
In 1977, during my lunchbreak, when I taught illustration at Leeds, I walked into Austicks’ Headrow Bookshop and was surprised to see Peter Ustinov at the back of the shop with the manager. The ideal opportunity to get a signed copy of this autobiography, Dear Me, for my Mum’s birthday.
“Who should I sign it to?” he asked.
“That’s a problem, she hates her name, Gladys.”
“That’s just like the Gladyses that I know.”
It wouldn’t look very friendly signed ‘To Mrs Bell’, so we went for:
‘Happy Birthday
to Richard’s Mum’
My Mum finally found a way around this. When she found herself far from home in the West Country, having broken her leg during a holiday she gave the nurse her middle name Joan, as she didn’t want ‘Gladys’ on the notice above her bed, so when she’d recovered enough to be transported by ambulance back to our local hospital, Pinderfields, in Wakefield, she stuck with her new name. From then on her friends called her Joan.
I’ve drawn this, as with previous sketches, from the Radio Times. This week the 1964 comedy heist movie Topkapi gets a showing. Ustinov won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Arthur Simon Simpson, a small-time crook who finds himself out of his depth.
A man carrying a box: it says something for Jonah Hill’s talents that he can conjure up a character – in fact a little short story – in one expressive pose. In Rupert Goold’s True Story he plays real-life New York Times journalist Michael Finkel acting ‘on well-intentioned-schlub setting’, as Radio Times film critic Andrew Collins puts it in his review (schlub is North American derogatory slang for a ‘talentless, unattractive or boorish person’, so definitely not like Jonah Hill).
We’re delighted to have some of our facilities open for your visit, you’ll notice we’ve made some changes to help keep everyone safe.
RSPB Dearne Valley Old Moor website
We’re looking forward to being allowed to travel again as far as our nearest RSPB reserves, but for the time being we’re limiting ourselves to walks from home. Non-essential shops and hairdressers opened again today.
An earlier version of this homemade birthday card (happy birthday, Paul) suggested that a Masked Booby had turned up at Old Moor, but I don’t think that I’d get that one past the Rarities Committee.
Katherine Waterston’s character Daniels, has all the kit she needs to terraform a lush alien planet. What could possibly go wrong?
Good to see Michael Rosen smiling again in last week’s Radio Times. This time last year, he was in an induced coma with a 50-50 chance of surviving Covid-19. In his latest book, Many Different Kinds of Love A story of life, death and the NHS, he recounts his near-death experience, illustrated by Chris Riddell.
this is a beautiful book about love, life and the NHS that celebrates the power of community and the indomitable spirits of the people who keep us well.
Waterstones’ website
I’ve been reading up on graphic design and typography recently, so I couldn’t help noticing that Kellogg’s recently revamped the carton of their Just Right breakfast cereal.
I thought that the shape of the pack had changed too, because its got a calmer, less cluttered look, but it’s exactly the same size. There’s been a similar revamp of some of the other Kellogg’s cereals, so they make a distinctive group on the supermarket shelf. I think they’ve pitched it ‘Just Right’ . . . in the Goldilocks Zone. Although she preferred porridge.
In my book design, I like to pack my pages with illustrations, comic strips and maps but there’s a lot of truth in the phrase ‘sometimes less is more’. If I’m reading through a book, rather than dipping into it for reference, I appreciate calm, clear design.
Martin Luther King features in a couple of television documentaries this week, giving me an opportunity to draw him from two small black and white photographs. That rather unusual angle, looking up at his face, might explain why I struggled with proportions in my first attempt.