Wood Pigeons

spurge and woodland sketches

These sketches from the hospital and the one of the wood were drawn with one of my regular fountain pens, the TWSBI Eco T.

pigeons sketches

But I’ve gone back to a fibre tip for these wood pigeons and sparrows in the back garden.

pigeons and art bag

These were drawn with a Mitsubishi uni pin 0.3 fine line, which has water and fade proof pigment ink.

pigeon, sparrow and foxglove

Cat’s-ear

Cat’s-ear, Hypochaeris radicata, flowering and going to seed on the front lawn, which I left untrimmed during ‘No Mow May’ but which is now due for strimming.

Longest Day

pigeons and plants

I find a quiet bench by St James’ Hospital’s historic workhouse chapel and settle down to draw the cherry tree but get distracted as two town pigeons bustle past me inspecting the turf.

stone, squirrel, birch and crow

A crow chases a scrawny-tailed squirrel across pedestrian crossing, up a couple of steps and behind a low wall towards birches.

On the artfully boulder-strewn roundabout a blackbird gathers beak-fulls of worms. After a long dry spell, yesterday’s persistent rain must have brought them to the surface again.

pigeon, crow and stone block

The grand Victorian architecture around the hospital attracts me but I prefer to draw something organic. There was a breeze blowing around the cherry tree leaves so, returning after a break, I draw its trunk and the sandstone block next to it.

crow and cat's ear

One of the crows finds an acorn-sized brown object, which immediately interests a second crow which follows it around until the item is either eaten or discarded.

Cat’s ear, self-heal, white clover and daisy grow on the lawn, although the much larger ox-eye daisy, or marguerite, that I drew was in a flower border, alongside berginia.

workhouse chapel

We have a brief shower in the afternoon, so I head for the church. The multi-coloured round-topped arch looks more byzantine than romanesque to me. There’s another similar arch above it with a balcony overlooking the chancel. As this was a workhouse chapel, I did wonder if anyone with an infectious disease would be put up there but it’s probably more likely that it was originally an organ loft.

Alliums

alium

75℉ 27℃, front garden: The tall alliums are attracting small to medium-sized bumblebees.

Borlotta Bean

bean plants

We’re growing borlotti beans this year, along with some regular French runners. The advantage with borlottis is that if you don’t get around to picking the pods and using them as runner beans – which is usually the case with us – you can un-pod the streaky purple beans and use them, or dry them to use later.

These had been grown on the kitchen windowsill so, like the one on the bottom left, they were leaning over towards the light. I turned the around to draw them just a couple hours ago and already the stems have straightened up.

Garden Painting Workshop

Hilary Cooper

I did consider taking acrylics and a canvas to today’s painting workshop at RHS Harlow Carr run by their current artist in residence, Hilary Burnett Cooper, but I stuck with my regular pen and watercolour and it was a chance to try my larger watercolour box on location. I recently updated it so that there are fewer strident greenish blues and earthy browns, replacing those with colours that would be more useful for flower painting.

Bergenia

Link

Hilary Burnett Cooper Landscape, scenic and figurative artist

Désirée

chitted potatoes

As we’re fairly far north here in Yorkshire and on a north-facing slope, we’ve left it until today to put in the Maris Peer second earlies and these Désirée early maincrop. Drawn here to test out the different virtual pens available in Procreate.

Nestbox Wars

blue tit
sparrow

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.

The sparrow terrace. With resident blue tit.

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.

Snowy Morning

snow sketches

Snow, rapidly melting, at the hospice this morning.

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