Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
From my 1964-65 negatives, this was probably my first visit the what was then a West Riding County Council nature reserve at Fairburn Ings (now an RSPB reserve).
I’ve colourised the shot of the information board but this black and white of the mute swans probably gives a better impression of the way the lagoon was surrounded by colliery spoil in its early days.
Some recent exotic visitors sampling the night life along the River Calder at Healey, Ossett. Happy birthday to John.
It’s that time of year when blue tits and sparrows fight it out for who gets to nest in our various nest boxes. Last year the blue tits raised a brood in the sparrow terrace at the back of our house but after a lively dispute between a pair of sparrows and a pair of blue tits over the blue tit box in the rowan tree in the front garden, the box ended up with no occupants during the breeding season.
History is repeating itself with the blue tits franticly trying to repel the sparrows at 8.30 this morning but the sparrows managed to force their way to the box and, as it turned out, despite the narrow dimensions of the brass ring around the entrance hole, they were able to squeeze in.
At the moment it’s sparrows who are taking most interest in the three-nest hole sparrow terrace but it’s early days and the blue tits could easily be the ones who eventually take possession.
The next step on my Procreate animal illustration course is to take one of my thumbnail sketches and try it with three different lighting set-ups. I’ve gone for the light coming from the left, the right and from below (as if the goose had been caught in the beam from car headlights).
The one I like best is the light from above left and slightly behind, with a glint of reflected light from the bottom right.
Then it’s on to a rough drawing, not too detailed, but indicating the different areas of plumage.
Feather that I picked up by the track at St Aidan’s yesterday and I think that it’s a secondary from the right wing of a goose. A large flock of pink-footed geese went over, touching down at the Astley Lake end of the reserve.
On Román García Mora’s Naturalist Animal Illustration with Procreate course I’ve gone back to a ‘task’ in an earlier unit, ‘Sketching in Front of the TV’. On YouTube I’ve found a National Geographic video of Canada geese taking off and drawn them on freeze-frame.
Having drawn them so much from life with wings folded it’s interesting to see what happens when the wings open up.
Rather than re-draw the Canada goose from my sketchbook, today I went to Procreate’s ‘Action’ menu and chose ‘Take a photo’ and used the rear camera of the iPad. I scaled up the photo to get the drawing I was after to fill the canvas.
Now that I’m more familiar with the process of putting together a drawing, following Román García Mora’s suggestions for an ‘illuminated drawing’, the next stage is to get more of the natural variation of watercolour washes into the illustration.
Wet weather even for the ducks and geese this morning so I’m trying the process of drawing an animal in Procreate on an iPad Pro as suggested by Román García Mora in his Naturalist Animal Illustration with Procreate course on Domēstika.
His favourite style is what he calls ‘illuminated drawing’ in the tradition of 18th and 19th century natural history illustration where a line drawing of the animal was printed and the colour added by hand in watercolour, so you get the definition of an ink drawing and the luminosity of watercolour.
10.05 a.m.: I’m counting about 85 Canada geese this morning but a passing dog walker tells me that for two days last week he thought that they’d deserted, there were none on the lake.
Two passers by comment on the single drake mandarin that is looking immaculate but sadly hasn’t yet attracted a mate. I’m here for the geese but if he swims over towards me I won’t be able to resist drawing him.
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.