I found this adult common shrew on one of the veg beds and my number one suspect for dispatching it has to be Basil a neighbour’s Himalayan Persian cat who currently seems to have exclusive hunting rights for our back garden. Shrews are distasteful so my guess is that Basil caught this one amongst the tussocks of grass in the meadow at the edge of the wood and abandoned it on his regular route back home.
Basil was making a half-hearted attempt to pounce on a hen pheasant yesterday, so a shrew wouldn’t present any challenges for him.
Shrews must 90% of their body weight in a day, but there are plenty of woodlice, spiders, beetles, slugs and worms in the meadow and around the edges of our back garden.
This common plume moth, Emmelina monodactyla, was resting on the garage door. Despite appearances ant its ‘monodactyla‘ species name, it does have the usual two pairs of wings but it rests with them tightly rolled. Also tucked in are its long rear legs, held lengthwise alongside its abdomen.
Common plume caterpillars feed on bindweed. The adults are attracted to ivy and sallow blossom and, later in the year, to ripe blackberries.
We’ve never had a better crop of potatoes than last year when we grew Maris Peer, a second early. They were versatile, heavy cropping and we didn’t have any waste because of blemishes or damage. We like their taste and texture; they never ‘boiled in the water’ and turned slushy. However, we were late buying them and our local garden centre had only these last few left, so we’ve also gone for some Maris Bard extra earlies.
De Atramentis ink bottle, original drawing 2.5 cm, one inch, across. Even enlarged, there’s no sign of the ink running into the watercolour wash.
This drawing took just over an hour and it’s unusual for me as it hasn’t been drawn on my iPad. It’s drawn with a dip pen with a John Heath’s Telephone Nib 0278 F and De Atramentis Black Document Ink in a Pink Pig cartridge paper sketchbook. I enjoyed the feel of pen on paper again, so I’ll be doing a few more dip pen drawings.
Another doodle, drawn to help me get familiar with the basics of creating a comic in Clip Studio Paint. This is from page one of an eight-page comic, but this is as far as it’s going, as I’ve already managed all the basics by adding characters, background, speech bubbles, call-outs and even a 3D object.
Basil is a neighbours’ Persian cat with Siamese markings who wanders ponderously through our garden and occasionally makes a run at the birds at the feeder. He flounces across the lawn towards them like a frantic feather duster, so the birds spot him long before he gets in pouncing distance. I like him as a potential comic character, but he’s a bit too close to Garfield at the moment.
Because of the wet autumn and winter, I’ve only just cut the long shoots off our Golden Hornet crab apple. Recycling some twine from a wigwam that I’d made for climbing plants last year, I’ve tied them into bundles to create a habitat which I’m hoping might attract solitary bees, beetles or other invertebrates.
I would have done the same if I’d got around to cutting back the long shoots on the rowan in the front garden too but a pair of blue tits are showing a lot of interest in the nestbox there, so I’ll leave that job until the autumn.
We cut the Joan Jay autumn-fruiting raspberry canes down to 18 inches last autumn and now in spring they can be cut right down to two or three inches, as they flower on new growth. I’ve cut them in half to produce a couple of bundles, one of which I’ve inserted into a cavity between the rocks at the edge of the raised bed.
Continuing with my Clip Studio Paint portraits, this is our niece Joanne from a ballpoint pen sketch that I made in the summer of 1984. I’ve closely followed the original because when I tried to elaborate details – for instance by adding a highlight to the eye – I found that I soon lost the expression that I’d caught in the quick sketch.
I’d describe that look as quizzically skeptical and it’s one that I associate with her late mum, Margaret, who, when I came out with some half-baked statement, would raise an eyebrow and ask:
“Do you think so?”
We were lucky to meet up with Joanne and her husband Paul recently, shortly before the advice to adopt social distancing. A week later the restaurant we’d met at was closed, along with all the other restaurants and bars across the country.
With all bars and pubs now closed until further notice, this Clip Studio Paint illustration was based on a pen and wash sketch from four or five years ago. As usual, as a drawing, I prefer the original sketch but I love the process of constructing a comic-style illustration, particularly when it gets to the final stage of dropping the tones in with the paint bucket tool.
I’m now onto the final part of my Clip Studio Paint Tips for Digital Outlining! tutorial by Eridey. I’m following a step by step demonstration of how to draw a female comic book character but basing my version on a 1985 sketch of Ruth, a communication design student at Leeds Polytechnic. I’m attempting to replace my tentative pen and wash with the graphic style of the tutorial, so my character is getting jet black hair instead of the fair hair of the original Ruth.
This is unfamiliar territory for me, so I’ll probably try working up several different sketches of people to get the feel of the process. Ultimately, I will use the techniques in my own way but first I want to understand how comic strip artists go about achieving their crisp and confident style.
I start with the G-pen, drawing the face and then, on a separate layer, the outline of the hair.
Blocking in
Next stage is to fill in the outline of the hair using the paint bucket tool. I draw the hands on another layer, on top of everything else, but initially you can see through to the layers below, so I need to create a layer mask, which in effect cuts a hand-shaped hole in the hair. It’s a technique that I’ve never used before, so that’s something new that I’ve learnt from going through the tutorial.
My original sketch
I then add individual strands of hair. The highlights are drawn using the G-pen loaded with transparent ‘ink’, rather than opaque white, so it’s like cutting into the area of black as you would when drawing on scraperboard.
Finally, on a base layer, I add tones of grey using the paint bucket tool. The simplified tones make me think of printmaking. But the original sketch is probably still my favourite!
Continuing with my Clip Studio Paint line drawing tutorial, this exercise, again closely based on an example in the Tips for Digital Outling! tutorial by Eridey, is intended to show how a thicker line can suggest that a subject is in the foreground.
The figure and the landscape are taken from two sketchbook drawings. The landscape is line for line like the original, except that I moved the house, which would have been hidden by the figure.
The man with the bag was a lightning sketch of a passer by but I had to change the perspective as my composition required a low viewpoint. As I firmed up details from the quick sketch, he became more of a countryman. With those hills behind him, I couldn’t help thinking that he might be a character in a James Herriot story.
It’s good to see the display boards are now in place at Sandal Castle, including my illustrations on this panel on the bailey which overlooks the barbican, drum towers and keep. I like the contrasting styles by the five artists who have each illustrated a panel. In my photograph you can just make out Liz Kay’s board – a bird’s-eye view of the castle in its heyday – which has been set up on the viewing platform on top of the keep.
We called at Sandal this morning to see the panels and, for once, there wasn’t a stiff breeze blowing up over the ramparts! A dunnock was singing its rather rushed, jingly song from a fence post as we walked across the bridge to the bailey.
My ‘Sandal Castle Guide’
Yes, there’s a Robin Hood connection with Sandal, this booklet features a walk around the castle.
You can still see damage from the Civil War siege.
The castle had its own kitchen and bakehouse.
A team of oxen and horse yoked together were used during the construction of the castle.
The well-preserved sally port was blocked long ago.
We have accounts of exactly what foods were stored in the castle’s larder.
