Going back to dip pen and ink – in this case De Atramentis – and watercolour for this drawing of my Lowe Alpine haversack and Merrell trainers.
Bag and Trainers
Category: Art
Jobs in the Movies
Happy birthday to Best Boy Dylan . . . although I seem him as a natural to be a foley artist.
The Software Business
We opted for 2 x 99s (not sure what that is in hexadecimal). Thanks Arden, and happy birthday (again, not sure what that is in hexadecimal).
The Birds of Paris
The original Collins Field Guide to the Birds of Britain and Europe included bird names in Dutch, French, German and Swedish. The rose-ringed parakeet didn’t get a mention in my 1967 edition. Since then its made itself at home in Paris and on just one occasion we watched a pair briefly visit our bird feeders.
Happy birthday to Antonin.
More Osprey Sketches
From my Osprey Camp sketchbook, July-August, 1973: I would have done some sketching on the summit of Cairngorm on Wednesday but the cloud never rose and my hands were numb. I was counting people who got to the top (4,084 feet). It was like working in a small cold but well frequented moon . . . The ride on the ski lift was great fun.
Note: In the Cairngorm Visitor Survey, during the period 19-25 July inclusive, 2,677 people were recored at the summit with a maximum of 900 (exactly!) on 23 July and a minimum of 65 on 20 July.
I was there on the final day.
On Wednesday evening David [a surveyor from Edinburgh] and I took the night watch. l started, then realized that I’d already read ‘The Assailants’ by Stan Barstow so I read another short story from Argosy 1970.
The ospreys stretched their wings the wren sang round the hide. It began getting light at two thirty to three and got lighter and lighter. The chaffinches came for biscuits and a squirrel. But the ♂ didn’t bring a fish – they seemed to be finishing off the monster fish he staggered home with last night.
On Friday afternoon we walked up to Einich. Eight miles along a track built to transport pipes to the loch. We didn’t have time to climb the steep sides. No eagles. But two Ring Ousels. A good walk though.
In the evening with Jean and Peter walked along the firebreak; kestrel, capercaillie, mistle throstles, small brittle skinned brown puff ball type fungus; along past Malachi until it was possible to cut across the moor and back to camp where I had another go at Chris’s mini. It looks as if it’s breathing this time; keep trying.
Torr Hill
Thursday 9th August 1973, from my Osprey Camp, Loch Garten, sketchbook: What a wind; swaying the forest pines, bending over the birches on the moor, breaking up the bank of cloud coming up the valley. There was white water on the gullery and grey breakers on Garten when I got round. I walked on shore getting sprayed.
‘They’ll moulder away and be like other loam.’ said Edwin Muir in his poem ‘The Horses’. This lorry was mouldering away on Torr Hill.
Operation Osprey, 1973
Fifty years ago today I was halfway through a 3-week stint as a volunteer warden for the RSPB’s Operation Osprey at Loch Garten.
A squirrel came down from the shutters into the hide and ran off with an entire Rich Abernethy biscuit.
The female osprey seemed considering an extension to the nest . . .
- Because the young are growing and knock her out of the nest every time they exercize
- the nest slipped over the other day.
WEDNESDAY 1st of AUGUST
Up Cairngorm with Linda & Bill . . . by chairlift to the middle station: the top section was closed because of high winds. Just beyond the Ptarmigan Restaurant a noise like a motor starting or one of the snow fences creaking in a the wind . . . a ptarmigan, no 3, no 10 . . . we walked towards them when they started moving we counted thirty but when they were still their plumage looked like granite only the white wings showed. Cairngorm had his head in the clouds. We turned back down.
Filtered Sunlight
At Newmillerdam this morning I’m experimenting with Art Filters on my Olympus DSLR, keeping it set to High Key, which seems appropriate for the first bright day that we’ve had for a while.
We’re on the regular lakeside circuit and, as it’s summer holidays, it’s good to see so many children taking an interest in nature (which isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy it just as much when they’re back in the classroom and we have the walk to ourselves!)
The High Key emphasises pattern in bark and rippling water but it leaves images looking pale and contrasty – I suppose that’s the whole idea – with highlights burnt out, so I’ve taken the images into Adobe Lightroom and looked through the suggested filters for something nearer to what I had in mind when I took the photograph.
I find myself looking at the familiar trail from an alternative point of view as ‘high key’ makes me think of the brighter side of nostalgic subjects. The texture in the sidelit Lawns Dike Trail sign with the mossy stonework and weatherworn wooden sign is just what I had in mind. It reminds me of vintage colour postcards.
As I’m fiddling with every image in Lightroom I might as well have taken normally exposed photographs and decided for each which filter – or no filter at all – might have been appropriate.
But I did try one more filter: the mallards in eclipse plumage dabbling around the Boathouse Cafe got the Vintage Filter, but again with a bit of tweaking in Lightroom afterwards.
The vintage effect works for me as it reminds me of colour plates in Edwardian natural history books.
Owl Feathers
Another homemade brush for my Procreate course.
Procreate Feathers
We’re onto feathers in Naturalist Animal Illustration with Procreate, an online course from Domestika. Following Román García Mora’s instructions I’ve made this brush to help build feathery textures.