Pony Blanket

pony blanket

While some of the ponies on Middlestown Hill are still wearing their winter coats, there are three nearer the village that are now roaming about unencumbered. They’re enjoying the freedom of being able to groom each other and to roll on the ground to hit that hard-to-reach itchy spot on their backs.

But yesterday morning the wind was from the north and all three of them had gathered in the lowest corner of the field, sheltering close to the hedges.

Cold Front

cold front

Yesterday at 9.30, we could see the cold front moving in from the north across the Calder Valley. Ten minutes later it had reached us and we had a very light shower of rain. Cool breeze.

rainbow

Fifteen minutes later, this faint rainbow appeared over Thornhill Edge.

Smithy Brook Quarry

Smithy Brook Quarry
Roadside quarry, Thornhill Lane, Smithy Brook, near Dewsbury

Sandstone for drystone walls and local buildings was available in blocks and small flagstones from the same small quarry near the small hamlet of Smithy Brook between Middlestown and Thornhill.

field sketch

At first sight this chevron pattern in the rockface looks as if it might be the result of the layers being folded sharply over, like a half-closed book. The Smithy Brook valley follows a fault-line but the earth movements associated with that wouldn’t have folded the rocks over like that.

What I think happened is something like this:

Sandstone Story

sandstone formation

Sketching in the Studio

quarry sketch

Another approach to recording our morning walk around our local patch: I took a photograph of this old roadside quarry with my iPhone and, back in the studio this afternoon, I’ve drawn it in dip pen and De Atramentis Document Ink from my iPad.

Just the watercolour to add now. I’m so unfamiliar with using this larger Winsor & Newton Professional Watercolours box that I’ve got out my swatches as a reminder. As I was getting out my watercolours I was interrupted by a beeping: Barbara’s brother John, currently, like most of the rest of us, sitting things out at home, was giving us a video call on the iPad, something he’d never tried until last weekend. I get a lot of use from that iPad.

quarry sketch

Summertime Walk

pony

British summertime starts today and we’re making a start exploring our local patch. Rather than sketch or take photographs I’m drawing my comic strip from remembered details.

To try some unfamiliar features of Clip Studio Paint, I’ve followed a tutorial for drawing a black and white comic strip, adding tone, patterns and a sunburst effect to the frames. I drew using a graphics pad and desktop iMac, so my lines are wobbling about all over the place but I should now be able to do a final version on my iPad Pro.

Earthworm

earthworm
earthworm

I’m pleased to regularly come across earthworms as I dig the veg beds. This is a juvenile, as it hasn’t developed a clitellum: the swollen band around its body, which makes it difficult to identify: in Britain we have 27 species of earthworm.

Link

Opal Key to Common British Earthworms

Maris Bard

maris bard

These wrinkled Bards with their spiky topknots remind me of a line from a Simon & Garfunkel song:

“Talking to a raisin that occasionally plays L.A.,
Casually glancing at his toupee.”

I’ve just finished reading Walt Stanchfield’s Drawn to Life, so I was thinking of his advice, when drawing figures to draw gestures rather than anatomy, so in this case I went for the laid-back poses of this little group, rather than the botanical detail.

Last year we nearly forgot what kind of potato we’d planted, so for the two varieties that we’ve gone for this year, I’ve cut labels from margarine cartons and written the nameS with a Sharpie. That should last for the two or three months until the potatoes are ready for harvest.

Foxgloves

foxgloves

Instead of weeding out these foxglove seedlings, I’m saving them for my meadow area.

Chicory tends to take over from most of the wild flowers that I try to introduce but foxgloves stand a fighting chance as they colonise open woodland and burnt areas and they prefer dry or moist acid soils. I’m not going to be able to establish the kind of wild flower meadow that you’d find on chalk downland but I should have more success in creating a woodland edge habitat.

Common Shrew

shrew

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.

Common Plume Moth

plume moth

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.

Maris Peer

Maris peer

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.

ink
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.