Richard Bell's nature sketchbook since 1998
We’re almost at the end of the apple blossom and the embryo fruits are beginning to form. I’ll need to thin out the fruits to two per cluster and I think most growers would then recommend just keeping the best of those as they develop. If I leave five in each cluster the tree will shed several as they start to grow.
Recent sketches from my pocket sketchbook, colour mostly added later. Sometimes I’ll take a photograph for colour reference but with these I’ve added the colour as I remember it.
A drake mallard stood resting by the duck pond in Thornes Park this morning. This was the only bird that didn’t move much during the whole time that I was there but I still found it difficult to draw get the correct proportion of head to body. With each drawing I started with the head but by the time I’d drawn the body I’d find myself coming back to redraw the head.
I couldn’t resist adding colour, which immediately made my sketches more mallard-like.
I drew birds in our back garden in the afternoon and, as with the mallard, added colour to each one as I went along.
The stock dove was an unusual visitor, smaller than the wood pigeon but quite capable of chasing it off, reaching out as if threatening to peck it. By the time they’d got down to the edge of the pond the wood pigeon gave up and flew away, leaving the stock dove to return to foraging beneath the bird feeders.
A group of these plants were growing on the riverbank and on a rubbly bank at the side of the riverside path behind industrial units. It looks like a relative of water avens but doesn’t have the drooping flowerheads of that species. Most of the flowers were yellowish green but some plants had flowers midway down the stem with magenta petals. A garden escape?
Next day we spotted this plant amongst the ferns at Brodsworth Hall and Gardens. It’s a Heuchera, a member of the saxifrage family from North America, so definitely a garden escape.
Taking a break on our return from Northumberland at Washington Wildfowl and Wetland Trust.
We’re on a north-facing slope, so the blackthorn blossom appears late and is still hanging on.
There are clusters of cream flowers on the bay, we haven’t noticed them in previous years. Bay is a member of the Lauraceae, the laurel family.
This opium (not Himalayan) poppy had seeded itself on one of the veg beds, so I’ve transferred it to my plants for pollinators bed and it seems to be settling in.
This foxglove rosette will be relocated too, when we put in the runner beans and dwarf French.
Alongside the chard I drew the other day there’s a row of beetroot, although I suspect by now they’ll be far too woody to use.
What’s left of the chard will be coming out soon when we start with the runner beans and dwarf French beans in this bed. This morning I put in 50 Setton onion sets, which we covered with netting, not just to prevent blackbirds and pigeons pulling them out but also to prevent foxes rolling about and digging on the veg bed as they did last year.
I forked a sprinkling of fish, blood and bone before planting the onion sets and it’s probably the smell of it that attracts the foxes. I’ve set up the trail cam to check on whether they turn up as expected.
In the spring of 1996 I’d just finished my book Yorkshire Rock which for several years had involved drawing lots of small illustrations, mainly from reference, so I felt the need to get out to draw from life again.
I took a portable easel and a set of acrylics into Coxley Valley and painted entirely on location, making a point of never finishing anything off when I got back home. I’d had enough of being stuck at my desk, now every brushstroke had to be painted directly from the natural world.
This silver birch grew on the slope directly beneath pylon cables. My theory is that while still a sapling it had been flattened by falling ice or snow but it continued to grow, framing the view beyond.
To keep things simple I took only the three primaries with me, plus white. I used an enamel jug or billy can which I dipped in the beck for my water. I used the billy can itself for cleaning brushes and the smaller enamel mug which served as a lid was for clean water for mixing colours.