Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
There are a few bright spots of colour beginning to appear on the raised bed behind the pond.
With the afternoon light starting to fade I went for the easier option of photographing them and drawing from my iPad.
This is my first drawing with my refreshed Winsor and Newton watercolour box which I’ve filled with botanical subjects in mind and so far it seems to be working.
Cherries and hawthorn boughs at the Hospice this morning.
My thanks to Beth and Ian who ran the Art Tour: Drawing from Observation at the Apple Store in Leeds on Thursday morning. We headed for Trinity Kitchen and settled down to draw using Procreate on the latest version of the iPad Pro. This was the central tree, I think that it’s a weeping fig, Ficus benjamina, with a ‘trunk’ of intertwined stems.
The cherry trees surrounding the Hospice are all the same age and currently they’re being lopped back. Hopefully they’ll burst into blossom again, but we might have to wait until next year until they’ve fully recovered.
Trees and shrubs at the Prince of Wales Hospice: hawthorn, sycamore (?) and elder.
Memories of wintry cross country ‘runs’ (actually my friend and I strolled once we were out of sight of the school, which didn’t take long on a foggy morning) in my ‘Wild Yorkshire’ nature diary in this month’s Dalesman.
It was muddy going around Newmillerdam yesterday but this morning it’s crunchy underfoot and ice has formed over parts of the lake.
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.
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.
