Sunday, 14 May, 2.30 pm: To me the River Idle, downstream from Retford at the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust Idle Valley reserve, looks pristine. Its clear with long tresses of water-weeds wafting in the current, although I haven’t spotted any fish darting around but its designation is that it has a ‘moderate’ ecological status, although it’s ‘good’ for invertebrates and fish get a rating of ‘high’.
Bunter Pebbles
From the edge of a car park near Retford, North Nottinghamshire, pebbles eroded out of the Bunter Sandstone, originally deposited in temporary lakes in desert landscape 225 million years ago. They’ve since been redeposited as alluvial sands and gravels.
Click Beetle
Testing out my new field guide, Britain’s Insects by Paul D. Brock. I got a good look at the click beetle, which was flying slowly past me, wing cases outspread. I caught it in the palm of my hand and after a few seconds lying on its back it performed its click, springing up from my hand and landing, right side up this time on the ground.
For the small hoverfly I’m going to have to refer to the companion field guide to Britain’s Hoverflies.
Abbeydale Road
We’ve been trying to meet up with Kathleen, my now 93 year-old cousin, since before the pandemic but at last we got to see her today at Bragazzi’s, on Abbeydale Road, a part of Sheffield where my mum grew up. Her local cinema, the 1,560-seater Abbeydale ‘Picture Palace’, built in 1920, is currently being restored.
Deadnettle
Ground ivy, growing at on the grassy verge of a path near the river.
The Ages of Man
Barbara’s brother John had a starring role in an ‘ages of man’ illustration I drew for Dorling Kindersley, which, as far as I remember, never made it into print. Also appearing, John’s oldest son Peter and his younger brothers Simon and Richard.
For the older versions of John I photographed his dad Bill.
It’s so easy to take a reference photograph on you phone these days but back in 1994 I had a print film from a trip to Scotland to finish off and I took it in to one of several processing shops in town and went for extra large prints.
It would have been so much easier with digital photography and you might think, what a shame that John’s performance on the guitar wasn’t recorded as a video clip along with the song but in reality he couldn’t play a note.
A Lighter Touch
I’ve been reading a list of ‘Five Essential Tips for Beginners’ in digital art and number one is: ‘Use a light touch when drawing on your tablet of device. This will help prevent unwanted pressure marks and smudging’.
That’s good advice. Having got through two PenTips 2 soft tips for my Apple Pencil in just a couple of weeks, I’m pleased that I’ve done better with the last remaining one.
I’m hoping that the lighter touch that I’m learning to use will transfer to my regular drawing with a pen on paper.
Another problem that I had with my way of drawing was that I was inadvertently changing the colour of my brush by resting a finger on the screen and invoking the eye-dropper tool. I’ve changed that in preferences so I can access the eye-dropper with a different shortcut.
John and Margaret
We’re looking through old albums, putting together a short book of memories of Barbara’s brother John. Going back to the pre-digital 1960s, 70s and 80s are plenty of groups at parties, children standing on lawns and a couple of formal wedding groups, but for me the stand out images are by the street photographers in seaside towns.
The close up of John and Margaret reminds me of films from the Swinging Sixties such as Michael Winner’s The System, where Oliver Reed plays a seaside street photographer, but we need John on his own on the cover, so we’re going for another seaside town photograph.
The original of this photograph is small and in black and white but I couldn’t resist using Photoshop’s colourisation neural filter on it. I think that it’s worked well here.
Although Barbara has just pointed out that Margaret’s pink cardigan has one yellow sleeve. I better correct that.
Borlotta Bean
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.
Sketching by the Pond
I’m working on my July issue of my Wild Yorkshire nature diary for The Dalesman using Adobe InDesign and Photoshop to fit everything in.
Being pressed for space I’ve tried to fit the swarming bees into the margin and, to add to the drama, instead of my usual smiling mugshot, I’ve tried a cartoon of Barbara and I on bee alert, blocking holes with steel wool and masking tape. This might not make it into the final cut, but I like to experiment.